


The Man Downstairs

by GinAndShatteredDreams



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Bonding, But there’s still fluff, Demonic Possession, Depression, Eye Trauma, Family Bonding, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Restraints, Pines Family, Pines Family Bonding, Platonic Relationships, Psychological Torture, Stangst, Torture, so much hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-20 13:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 165,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13718667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinAndShatteredDreams/pseuds/GinAndShatteredDreams
Summary: An AU idea(inspired by this post)where Stan threw a rope to Ford as he was being pulled into the portal.  He let go of his journal in favor of grabbing the rope and it was lost to Bill's dimension.  Stan had saved him and for that, he was grateful.  They talked and forgave each other for the past and all seemed well for as much as a day.  That was when Bill's ruthless anger became apparent and he took full advantage of his deal with Ford.  Thirty years later, the demon is still punishing him for his refusal to rebuild the portal.Usually updates every other week but it’s the holidays so updates will be sparse for a while.





	1. The Man Downstairs

**Author's Note:**

> This is only a little piece of this AU. I'm not sure if I'll write anymore for it so, for now, I'll just release this into the wild as a one-shot for anyone to imagine what they'd like about it.
> 
> Edit- apparently this is turning into a monster, life-consuming fic... Also, the warnings are there just in case. I'm mostly trying to not be too graphic with anything but, nature of depiction aside, the elements are still there.

A quiet mind was a rare occurrence for Stanford Pines even before he'd made the deal that plunged his life into lonely confinement.  Yet, it had been nearly twelve hours since the dream demon had last visited him.  He understood why.  Today's silence was, in itself, a form of torment - time alone, confined, unable to do anything but think about the things he couldn't do.  He'd had days like this before when the boredom nearly drove him over the edge, when knowing that access to activities as simple as writing, drawing, or reading could result in more scars added to the spattering of discolored lines and bruises already etched across his body.  But today was especially difficult.  He hoped, honestly hoped, his brother had enjoyed his day and, at the same time, hoped he'd visit soon, if only to relieve him from the miasma of his own mind.  
  
And so he waited, sitting among pillows of various sizes and colors on the padded floor, leaning against the equally padded wall of a cell built for him in his own basement; built at his own insistence to protect the world and built at his brother's to keep Ford, himself, as safe and comfortable as possible.  Despite the hours passed, his right eye remained reddened and raw from repeated possession.  _At least_ , he thought, _it isn't bleeding anymore.  At least, it hasn't rotted away to nothing yet._ Though, it certainly felt like it might at times.    
  
He hadn't had access to a mirror in so long that he could only imagine how dark the circles under his eyes must be and how pale his face must look.  At least Bill was letting him eat enough to maintain some amount of health.  After all, he wanted him alive for more than one reason.  Too bad he wasn't sure anymore if he still wanted himself ali-  
  
A knock cut off his thoughts.  His head snapped up, looking past the bars of his cell to the wooden door centered in a wall covered in family photos and his own drawings (only in crayon since they were toughest to weaponize), his only window to the outside world.  
  
"Hey, Ford.  Can I come in?" his brother asked.  
  
"Certainly!" he answered, lifting himself to his feet and stepping over piles of pillows to approach the bars with an enthusiasm he hadn't felt in far too long mingled with a sinking feeling in his chest.  
  
Stan cracked open the door, peeking through to assure himself it was safe to enter.  He emerged slowly, one hand held behind his back, clad in an atypical outfit composed of a tropical shirt, khaki shorts, and his fishing hat.    
  
Before he'd even fully opened the door, Ford flooded him with questions.  "How did it go?  Did the kids enjoy fishing?  Did you catch anything good?  Did you have fun?"  
  
"Well, it started off shaky, he answered, closing the door with a light click.  "They went off on their own to hunt some monster thing for a while but they eventually came back and we had some fun.  They wore the hats I made them."  
  
"That's good.  You worked hard on those," Ford said, his hands absently wrapping around the bars between himself and his brother.  
  
"Yeah.  I uh...  Here," he said, pulling his hand from behind his back to reveal a floppy fishing hat.  
  
Ford reached out for it and unfolded it, his fingers tracing the hand sewn letters spelling out his own name, a smile lifting the corners of his lips.  
  
"It's for when we figure this all out," Stan said, digging in his shorts pocket.  "I uh...  have some photos if you want to see."     
    
"Of course!"  He set his new hat down on a round pillow beside him and stared down at the photos held out before him, though, he refused to reach through and take them.  He didn't need them torn to shreds by the monster in his mind.  "They're growing up so fast.  But, it does look like you had fun.  I'm glad.  You deserve a break."  
  
"Yeah, well...  So do you," Stan said with a melancholy sigh.  He turned the photos in his hand, gazing at them as he mused, "They're great kids, ya' know.  I think they'd understand if I told them about you and our uh...  situation.”  He pocketed the photos, his hand rubbing the back of his head.  "I mean...  That is...  Do you want to meet them?"  
  
Ford smiled, ready to answer with a joyful "yes" but his smile sagged mid-word and he corrected himself, "I would like to, yes.  But No.  It's too dangerous.  I'M too dangerous."  He sagged to the floor, his back to the bars, huddled in on himself as if trying to be physically smaller.  
  
Stan dropped to his knees, reaching through the bars to rest his hand on his brother's shoulder.  "I know it's been a long time.  Far too long.  But, we'll figure this out."  
  
Ford cradled his head in his hands, his voice shaking as he spoke, "He keeps rearranging things in my head.  There are ways...  It's maddening that I know I know them but they're just...  I just...  can't think of them."    
  
Stan risked a little more, his arms stretching past the bars to hug his brother.  "I swear if I ever get my hands on that monster I'll..." he sighed, his anger melting into a gentle murmur, "I'm sorry things are still like this."    
  
"No..."  Ford croaked, his voice straining, "No... Please..."  
  
Stan leapt away, anticipating Ford's violent turn toward him, his hand swiping through the bars.  He fell backwards, staring in awe at a sight he'd seen enough times that it should have lost it's impact on him.  His brother grinned wildly, his eyes glowing yellow, tears staining his cheeks.  
  
The cackle passing through his brother's lips grated on his nerves before the demon's nasally whine echoed unnaturally through the basement, "You know how to end this, Brainiacac.  Rebuild the portal and you can see your family all you want!"  
  
Ford blinked, his eyes dimming back to their usual brown as he backed away from the bars.  "No," he answered, his tone failing to be as steady and stern as he wished it could be, "No!  I won't let you into our world."  He took another step back, tripping backwards over a bolster pillow. He clutched his head, fighting against himself, "Get out of my mind!"  
  
But he'd never once been able to successfully ward off the benefactor of the deal forged of his own gullibility and misplaced trust.  The yellow glow shone through his eyes yet again.  
  
"Hey, I'm not exactly happy about being in your brain box this often, either," Bill snorted, "It's too confined in here," he explained, motioning to the cell, "to have much fun.  Sure would be nice if I could throw you down the stairs again like old times!  But, suit yourself.  Enjoy the mystery bruises tomorrow!"  
  
As the demon faded from his mind, Ford heard his brother call his name, an edge of desperation to his shout.  
  
"Stanley..."  He shook his head, looking toward his brother through blurry eyes.  Stan still sat, slightly disheveled and stunned on the basement floor.  "Stanley!  Did...  Did I hurt you?"  
  
"Nah, I got out of the way in time," he answered, trying to wrangle his words into a lackadaisical tone and adding a dismissive wave of his hand.  
  
"Because you've gotten used to avoiding it..."  Ford turned away, edging himself closer to the padded corner.  "I'm sorry Stanley..."  
  
"Ford..."  
  
"Just...  go.  Please," he whispered.  
  
Stan sighed, reaching into his pocket for the photos of himself and the kids.  He pinned them to the wall beside a faded photo of his childhood self posing with Ford in front of the Stan O' War.  "Someday," he muttered nearly inaudibly.  He turned back to his brother, huddled in the corner in his fruitless attempt to minimize his breakdown.  _I'll figure out the way to fix this,_ he thought, opening the door and letting himself out.


	2. A Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan brings Ford an early birthday gift and discusses the wax figure uprising with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... I really wasn't going to write more for this... Apparently I lied... Even to myself. I have a few ideas for some other parts so we'll see how things go.  
> This one has a bit of a lighter mood to it, though, apologies in advance for one particular part involving a certain genius living in the dump and a certain other genius who has had his mind rearranged by a demon...

Stan hummed impatiently to himself, the sound nearly drowned out by the clunking and whirring of the elevator as it descended to the basement.  He leaned against a stained sheet covering a box-shaped object roughly three feet tall and supported by a flatbed.  On its top was a bag of Cheese Boodles, two Pitt colas, a paper cup, and a paper plate with two roast beef sandwiches crafted on, as Stan would say, fancy schmancy rolls.  The elevator jerked to a halt and the door rumbled open revealing the echo of empty space which once housed motherboards, super computers, and what he figured was an unnecessarily complicated control panel.  What was once a window to the active danger zone for an interdimensional portal was now a blank wooden wall with a door near its center.  
  
He parked the flatbed beside the door and reached out to knock but a muffled whoosh halted his hand.  As it faded, he knocked twice.  When no reply came he called out, "Ford? "  
  
Stan pressed his ear to the door, trying to catch any reply.  Still nothing.  His chest tightened despite practically knowing there was a simple reason for the silence.  But Bill _was_ full of unexpected surprises...  After a few seconds, he heard a brief gurgle of water followed by the click of a door shutting.  
  
"Ford?"  Stan repeated.  "You okay?"  
  
"Stan?  Sorry, I was in the bathroom.  Come on in."  
  
Stan tucked the two soda cans into the pockets of his boxers, lifted the assorted food goods into his arms, and pushed the door open.  As he entered, he couldn't help but be thankful for what Bill claimed was his distaste for an amalgamation of human filth.  Indeed, Bill hadn't yet bothered Ford while he used the shower and restroom facility Stan had installed in the corner of his cell.  It was little more than a shell of a room crafted from corrugated metal, lined in linoleum, and covered on its outside by foam padding.  Its door was more of the same.  Even so, Ford didn't want to leave himself open to Bill's threats of injury any longer than necessary and kept his time in there brief.    
_  
He hasn't bothered him so far..._  Stan thought.  _But he's a damn liar...  Nothing says he won't at some point..._  
  
"Good er... Evening? I lost track of time, it is still evening, right?" he asked, glancing at the clock hanging above the TV to find it was nearly midnight.  
  
"Close enough.  How're you holdin' up?"  Stan asked, forcing himself not to cringe at the dark patches on his brother's arms and around the edges of his overgrown beard.  
  
"I'm alright," Ford answered, wincing as his forced smile shifted the elasticized straps of his glasses over a blue patch beside his ear.  He sighed and attempted a more honest approach, "Still hurts but...  Not as bad as yesterday."  
  
Bill had certainly delivered on his promise of mystery bruises.  Stan wondered what exactly caused them, Ford's own limbs?  The bars between himself and his brother?  He'd expressed his worries to Ford about never building the fourth padded wall but Ford had insisted the sense of claustrophobia would be overwhelming without having some sense of breathing room...  And, Stan suspected, the wall of photos to keep him company.    
  
As for other safety measures, Stan had already seen far too much of his brother bound in a straitjacket over the years and dreaded the idea of things escalating to the need for one again, probably as much as Ford, himself, did.  Yet, on Ford's part, it was one of the few acts of defiance he had available.  Extreme as it was, it did have a tendency to keep Bill away for a short time in the early days; Long enough for a decent few hours of sleep at times.  But it seemed, lately , that Bill was cherry-picking only the most hurtful moments for possession and leaving Ford with the lingering fear of what the demon was capable of forcing him to do.  It was likely a fresh approach, a new way of tormenting him, Stan figured.  
  
An undignified growl interrupted Stan's whirring thoughts and he quirked an eyebrow at his cringing brother.  "Wow.  Good thing I brought food," he chuckled.  
  
"Thanks," Ford managed a smile and lowered himself onto a pillow near the bars.  He squished a floor pillow between them, offering it to Stan.  "Oh...  Wait.  I...  I mean...  If you have time.  I understand if you need to get back upstairs with the kids."  
  
"'Course I got time," Stan said with a grunt as he lowered himself onto the pillow, his knees sending electric jolts of protest up through his thighs.  He handed Ford one of the sandwiches, opened the two sodas and took a bite from his own sandwich.    
  
Between bites, Ford asked, "Any news on who destroyed your wax figure?  It's quite a shame.  Mabel did a stunning job of sculpting it."  He took another bite and nodded to the photo posted on the wall behind Stan of Mabel posing with her creation.  "Quite an artistic prodigy, she is."  
  
"She IS pretty amazing," Stan's garble nearly spewed out crumbs.  He swallowed hard and continued, "But yeah, actually... The kids figured out it was the other wax figures that chopped off wax Stan's head and they destroyed them all.  Guess they were cursed to come to life at night or somethin'."  
  
"Interesting," Ford mused more to himself than to his brother, "Too bad they destroyed them.  I would have liked to have examined them..."  
  
"Yeah well, what I can't figure is why we never heard them, you know...  rummaging around for all these years."  
  
"Indeed.  That is a bit disconcerting..." Ford agreed, shoving the last bite into his mouth.  
  
"Hey," Stan said, pouring soda into one of the paper cups and handing it to Ford, "You still good on snacks down here?"  
  
Ford drank down the entire cupful before answering, "They are running a little low..."  
  
"I'll go the the store tomorrow and stock up," he promised, the bag of Cheese Boodles rustling as he tore it open.  "Those granola bars I got last time something you'd want again?"  
  
"Yes, they were pretty good," Ford answered, reaching through the bars for a handful of Cheese Boodles.  
  
Stan had to admit, sometimes, that he was glad Bill seemed to want both him and Ford to stay alive.  _"Hard to rebuild an interdimensional portal when you're dead!"_ he'd said.  And, while Stan didn't know exactly what went on when Ford raided the snack stash stored in the bathroom, he did see that Ford had gotten good at tossing the wrappers through the bars and into the trash bin in the corner.  _He must be so bored that he does trick shots by now_ , he thought.  Hope what I got for him helps...  
  
"Hey, um..." Stan broke the momentary silence between them, rubbing cheese dust away from his stubble, "Ford.  I uh...  Got you an early birthday present."  
  
"Oh, Stan, you didn't have to-"  
  
"Yeah...  I did.  I think you'll like it.  Hold on and I'll get it."  He grunted as he stood, nearly tripping on his right slipper, then headed to the door.  A second later, he pushed it open with the flatbed.  "Ready?" He said, his smile beaming.  
  
Ford nodded, slightly confused by the size of the covered object.  
  
Stan pulled off the sheet and motioned toward the gift with an enthusiastic, "Ta-Da!"  
  
"A new television?"  Ford questioned.  He'd always enjoyed the visits with Stan when they watched a show or two on the old TV he'd brought down years ago.  Some days, he'd ask for it to be left on just for some noise but it was frustrating that he couldn't control it himself.  Even a remote control was...  Rather bruise inducing.  Eventually, it fell mostly out of use in favor of commercial-less days and visits filled with conversation and drawing.  
  
"Not just a new TV, this one is voice activated!"  Stan explained.  
  
"Is it really?" Ford asked, matching Stan's earlier enthusiasm, his eyes widening in awe of the idea.  
  
"Sure is!  I paid the old kook who lives in the dump to rig up this set.  I think his name is McGadget...  McGook?  McGucket?"  
  
"Sounds like a smart man," Ford said, stroking his wiry beard, "I wonder why he's living in the dump."  
  
"Dunno," Stan said with a shrug, "He's got a way with gizmos but he's definitely got some personal issues."  
  
"I think I'd like to meet him someday.  Perhaps when we...  If we..."  
  
"No ifs!" Stan interrupted, "We WILL figure out the way to keep that monster out of your head."  
  
"When..." Ford corrected quietly, "When we figure it out..."  
  
"Anyway," Stan led their conversation back on track, "We just need to sample your voice and you'll be able to tell this TV to turn on and off, and tell it volume up and down, and what channel you want."  
  
"Amazing!" Ford replied, staring at the darkened screen.  "Thank you, Stan.  I wish I could give you a gift in return."  
  
"What do you think all of those drawings you make are?" Stan asked in a sarcastically disgruntled huff, crossing his arms over his chest.  "You know I got 'em all saved in a book upstairs."  
  
"You keep those?  But they're just crayon sketches from when you bring the box down..."  
  
"Of course, ya nerd.  Heh...  you're ALMOST as talented as Mabel, ya know," Stan's belly shook as he laughed.  
  
Ford chuckled in return.  Stan smiled wide.  It was good to hear him laugh, even a little.  There was still hope.  He hadn't lost it and somehow, Ford still clung to the fringes of it as well.  
  
"Alright, let's get this set up for you," Stan said, tapping the power button.  He recorded some samples of Ford's voice and they tested multiple functions before Stan offloaded it from the flatbed and loaded the old TV onto it.  
  
"Thanks again, Stan.  It'll be good to at least watch the news again during the day.  And to mute the commercials."  
  
"Ha ha, right?  Well, I think you're all set and...  I'd better get back up there before the kids get suspicious.  They're supposed to be in bed but they got habits of gettin' up during the night for snacks and drinks."  
  
"Alright.  I hope you can manage some sleep, then," Ford said.    
  
Stan wheeled the flatbed back out the door and peeked through for a final goodnight.  But before he could say a word past "Thanks", Ford spoke up.  
  
"Hey.  Stan?  Are you alright?  You were really upset yesterday when the wax figure was destroyed..."  
  
"Yeah.  'Course I am," he answered with a dismissive shrug.  
  
"My apologies if it's rude to ask but, why were you so distraught about it anyway?"  
  
"Are you kidding?  Have you seen this face?" he said, pointing at his crooked grin, "Anyone would be upset to lose such a handsome visage."  
  
"Ah yes, you must be quite the heart throb," Ford joked.  
  
"Careful there, twin..."  
  
"Fair enough," Ford shrugged with a grimace, his bruised shoulder throbbing.  
  
"Get some sleep, Poindexter, K?"  
  
"Thanks.  You too."  
  
Stan sighed as the door shut behind him.  He'd staged a funeral for the wax figure...  A FUNERAL.  Was he delusional?  No...  Just...  Lonely.  Even with the kids there, he wished Ford could be with them, wanted so badly for him to be able to join them that he'd acted like a wax figure could represent him.  _All this must be really gettin' to me,_ he thought.  But It was true.  He missed him.  He missed Ford being Ford, missed him being able to speak freely, and, even though he knew Ford would never purposely hurt him again and would, in fact, put his life on the line for him, he hated that he was afraid of him.  _No.  Not of Ford.  Of HIM.  Of what that demon could force Ford to do_.  But sometimes the lines blurred too much for Stan's liking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill is a &$%#ing liar... Just sayin...
> 
> Fq'p jxab lc jbqxi


	3. There Are Still Good Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Ford discover that even after all these years, they still share some of the same interests. The two discuss the eerie break in Bill's assaults on them as well as their suspicions about Lil' Gideon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the title suggests, this is another lighter, mostly fluff chapter. Things may be bad but there's still laughter and an unbreakable brotherly bond. I should probably note that Dipper and Mabel’s stories are following canon so far.

Ford sat near the bars of his cell, the flicker of the TV glinting over his dampened cheeks.  He lifted his near-empty package of jelly beans up and shook the last few into his mouth without taking his eyes off the screen.  
  
"Thank goodness you defeated Count Lionel!" a woman's voice exclaimed joyfully, "I am simply mortified.  He had no right-!"  
  
"He'd better not bother you two again!" Ford threatened, his mouth still half-full of sugary sweetness.  
  
"Indeed!" a man replied, "He had better not bother us again!"  
  
"That's what I'm saying!" Ford shouted, leaning in closer, his silver hair falling in unkempt clumps over his shoulders.  
  
A knock at the door jolted him into an upright position.  He swallowed hard and said in a hushed hiss, "TV off."  The TV obeyed leaving him in the silent dimness of his cell.  He straightened his sweater, cleared his throat and answered, "Come on in, Stan."  
  
Stan pushed the door open, a covered tray in one hand and a paper cup in the other.  As usual, two sodas tugged down at the pockets of his boxers.  He couldn't contain a laugh at the sight of his sniffling brother surrounded by pillows and snack wrappers, wiping his cheeks with his sleeve.  "You were watching that sappy romance movie stuff weren't you?" He asked.  
  
"What?!  No.  I just...  Got an eyelash in my eye!" He defended, blinking over burning, red eyes.  
  
"Both of them?"  
  
"...  Yes!"  
  
"You do realize this wall isn't soundproof, right?" Stan said with a quirked eyebrow.  
  
"Oh.  So you were eavesdropping on me, then?"  Ford joked, pushing the floor pillow Stan typically liked to use through the bars and setting it on the floor.  
  
"Well...  You know...  I wanna make sure I don't hear you snoring or anything and wake you up."  Stan wasn't completely lying.  
  
"Sure sure," Ford replied with a reasonable amount of sarcasm and suspicion.  
  
"Anyway," Stan said, trying to keep the tray steady as he lowered it to the floor, "That Count Lionel sure ruined his chances didn't he?"  He let out an "oof" as he plopped down onto the fleece-covered floor pillow.    
  
"He certainly did!" Ford answered before his thoughts could catch up to him, "He should have- wait..." he squinted and pointed at Stan, "You watched The Duchess Approves too?"  
  
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Stan defended,  crossing his arms and looking away with a "humph."  He turned back slowly, lowering his arms.  "...Maybe...  Yeah alright... Ya got me," he sighed, holding his hands up in surrender, "I'm hooked.  The duchess is just so...  relatable, ya' know?"  
  
"It's true!" Ford agreed, picking up the snack wrappers and handing them through to Stan.  "She represents a universality of emotions that transcends age and gender...  Perhaps we can watch that movie together sometime?"  
  
"Yeah...?  Yeah!  We should," Stan replied, shoving the snack wrappers aside and lifting the lid from the tray.  "Are you even still hungry?  Looks like I made you wait too long for dinner."  
  
"I definitely would enjoy some real food," Ford answered, his mouth nearly watering at the smell of the cheeseburger and the sight of fresh salad greens and cherry tomatoes on the plate Stan had revealed.  
  
"Sorry I'm a bit late getting down here tonight.  I thought the kids were home but turns out they went out without tellin' me and they just got back a few minutes ago.  Apparently they were checking out the old Dusk to Dawn with Wendy and her friends.  They wouldn't tell me much about it, though so I sent them to bed and asked them to at least tell me if they're going out."  
  
"Oh that can't be good that they were there.  After the owners died so tragically, I suspect it might be haunted," Ford said reaching through the bars for a tomato and pinch of lettuce.  He dipped them into the cup of Italian dressing and stuffed them into his mouth.  
  
"You think?"  Stan asked.  
  
"It's a possibility.  That could be why they won't say much.  They probably think you won't believe them," He shrugged and reached through the bars for the cheeseburger.  
  
"Yeah.  Probably.  Hope nothin' too bad happened to them if that's the case."  Stan shifted around on the pillow, his face scrunching as he pulled the soda cans from his pockets.  He popped them open, poured Ford's into the paper cup, and took a swig out of his own can.  
  
"I think they would have mentioned it if they were hurt or anything," Ford said between bites, "Or at least I'd hope."  
    
"I'd hope so, too," Stan said, tapping his stubbly chin, "Speaking of hurt, how are ya doin' today?  Looks like your bruises are getting better."  
  
"They are," Ford answered, reaching through for the soda cup.  "He hasn't bothered me in a few days.  Not to curse it but...  It's eerie...  As if he's...  Planning something..."  
  
"Yeah..."  Stan sipped at his soda.  "I mean, good riddance if he's bored with us but...  I get what ya mean.  It feels..."  
  
"Foreboding..." Ford filled in.  
  
"Yeah.  Fancy word that sounds like it describes the thing.  Maybe he's just mad that we padded the bars," he added, poking the cotton covered batting he'd glued to them.  
  
"Perhaps.  Though, I am surprised he doesn't seem eager to...  prove that won't stop him," Ford said, tapping one of the covered bars.  
  
"Yeah...  I mean...  hopefully it helps er...  soften the blows when he has his tantrums but yeah, it still ain't a perfect solution."  
  
"Seems like it will help some, at least," Ford said.  He reached through the bars for another handful of lettuce and a few slices of cucumber.  "So, how is Mabel holding up after her break-up, anyway?  Is she still angry at Gideon?"  
  
"I'm not even sure we can call that a break-up.  She never liked him like that.  He kinda forced her into it.  And I hate that I almost did too just because Bud offered me a deal for bigger profits.  Thanks for that pathology, Dad," He grumbled sarcastically, receiving a knowing nod from Ford.  "But, she seems alright now," Stan continued.  "Guess it's a good thing it didn't work out after all.  I'm still freaked out by that kid."  
  
"I've seen some of those commercials of his that you were talking about.  You're right that something seems off about him.  And that he's as phony of a psychic as mom was."  
  
"Yeah, if anyone can see a fake, it's us," Stan agreed, tipping back his soda can to drain the last drops into his mouth.    
  
"It's weird, though," Ford said, reaching through the bars for the paper cup and cradling it in both hands.  "That amulet he was wearing seemed familiar but I can't figure out why.  I don't think I've ever seen it before but...  I don't know."  
  
"Looks like he lost it since those commercials were filmed," Stan said, squishing his soda can between his fingers with a crunch.  "Or at least, he doesn't wear it anymore.  I'll keep an eye on him, though.  'Specially if something seems familiar about that to you."  
  
"That sounds like a good idea in general.  Keep your enemies close and all, right?"  Ford tipped his cup toward Stan as if toasting to the thought then chugged the entire cupful.  
  
"Yeah.  I really don't know what it is he has against me," Stan said with a shrug, "For once, I never did nothing to him.  He just seems to hate that I'm here."  
  
"Listen to us..." Ford said, passing his empty cup to Stan.  "Two old men worried about the threats of a child..."  
  
"Ha ha, right!  You'd think we're paranoid or something," Stan said, chuckling awkwardly.    
  
"Yeah, you'd think we're constantly on the lookout for signs of a demon badgering us or something," Ford added.  
  
"Right?" Stan replied, gathering up the empty plate, cup, and snack wrappers onto the tray and replacing its lid.  "Well, I hate to run off so soon but, I better get back upstairs.  The kids probably haven't been able to get to sleep yet."  
  
"Yes, you should go try to sleep yourself."  
  
"Yeah.  Not sure I'll be able to what with thinking about that wedding kerfuffle," he said with a wink.  
  
"Ah yes.  I almost feel bad for Count Lionel.  But he was out of line interrupting the wedding like that," Ford said, tapping his bearded chin.  
  
"Well," Stan grunted, lifting himself from the floor pillow with the tray balanced precariously in one hand.  "I guess we'll have to wait until part two to find out what happens to him.  But for now, good night ya' nerd."  
  
Ford reached through the bars and pulled the floor pillow back inside his cell.  "Good night, Stanley," he said with a wave and watched the door click shut behind his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise they won't be eating something in every chapter ;). 
> 
> Qebob xob kbt mxtkp fk qeb dxjb.


	4. June 15th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Ford prepare for a horrifying birthday tradition neither can avoid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um...  
> ...  
> ...  
> Sorry?
> 
>  
> 
> Special thanks to bill-beauxquais.tumblr.com for listening to my ramblings about this.

Stan cracked the door to Ford's basement cell open just enough to ask, "'Mornin', Ford...  Are you uh...  Still you?"  
  
"For now..." he answered, pressing himself back further into the far corner, sitting cross-legged with a round pillow in his lap.  His hair still hung in wet ribbons over his shoulders from his shower and he'd changed into the clean sweater Stan had brought down the night before.  "He hasn't shown up yet..."  
  
Stan crept in, leaving the door ajar and keeping close to the photo-covered wall.  His shoulders lifted in a stiff shrug at his loss for an appropriate sentiment.  "I'd say Happy Birthday but-"  
  
"Say it anyway." Ford interrupted, staring down at his fists clenching around the flannel pillow.  He looked up with a flare of determination in his eyes, his voice stern as he vowed, "I won't let him take this from us!"  He breathed deeply, managed a light smile, and said, "Happy Birthday, Stanley."  
  
Stan mirrored his expression, "Happy Birthday, Stanford."    
  
Ford's fingers kneaded nervously at the pillow as he asked, "So, is everything all set for the party tonight?"  
  
"It is...  But I still don't feel right-  I mean, are you sure you want me to do this?" Stan asked, venturing a step forward.  
  
"Stanley...  I...  I want you to have fun for both of us.  Alright?  Do it to defy him!  Do it to show him that we haven't given up!" Ford forced as much determination into his voice as he could muster.  
  
"I don't know if I can," Stan admitted, staring down at his slippers.  
  
"...I know..."  he said with an empathetic sigh.  "I'm sorry.  I know it's not as easy as saying 'don't worry'.  It isn't something you can magically switch off."  
  
"Nope.  Sure isn't."  
  
"Well..." Ford reasoned, "There's nothing we can do about this right now.  You'd think we'd be used to Bill's "birthday gifts" by now..."  
  
"Yeah..." Stan sighed.  "Should...  Should we try the restraints again?"  He hated to bring up the idea but didn't want to neglect it if Ford thought it might help.  
  
"N-not after what happened last time..."  Ford said with a slight tremor to his voice, shaking his head.  
  
"You're right."  Stan shivered at the thought, the memory playing back like a high definition horror movie in his mind.  "What about that shirt I sewed the gloves onto?"  
  
"I have a feeling it would end as badly as using the restraints or the straight jacket.  It might have kept him away in the early days but now...?  No..."  
  
"Oh.  What about your nails?" Stan asked, moving closer to the bars as if to look for himself.  "Are they cut back enough?"  
  
"Even if they were, I've bitten them down to the quick...  Not that he doesn't still...  Nevermind."  
  
"Damn it!" Stan spat.  He lifted his head, trying to be hopeful, trying to offer some optimism.  "Maybe...  Maybe since he hasn't done anything in a few days...  Maybe it means he's forgotten about us.  Moved on to someone else, ya know...  so you can be free..."  
  
"We can dream, can't we?"  Ford replied, "But, even if that was the case, I don't want to simply be free. I want to assure he can never hurt anyone ever again."  
  
"Yeah...  I'd like to land a punch or ten to his eye for this."  Stan huffed, punching his palm as if hoping the demon could see his threat.  
  
"Stanley...?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Please promise me you'll stay out of here for a while, no matter what happens.  I don't want him to hurt you too."  
  
"...Alright."  He hated agreeing to Ford's terms.  He wanted nothing more than to stay with him, to keep him safe even if he had to keep his arms wrapped around him all day.  But he knew his brother was right.  And he knew he needed to stay relatively uninjured, for Ford's sake.  
  
"Y-you sh-should get b-back upstairs," Ford suggested, failing at his attempt to steady his voice.  
  
"...  I suppose..." Stan said, clenching his eyes closed over the rush of outrage and heartache threatening to burst out, choking the breath right out of him.  
  
"Maybe it won't be so bad this year with the kids here to keep you company," Ford offered, trying to mimic Stan's attempt at optimism.  
  
Stan pinched his nose and laughed, a jaded, bitter sound.  "Wow," He scoffed, gripping the padded bars as if he meant to tear them from their frame, "The guy who's about to go through Hell AGAIN is worried about how rough things will be for me..."  He sighed, his hands loosening and drooping over the horizontal support bar.  
  
Ford inhaled visibly but could not unearth a response from the mountain of thoughts so abstract that they bordered on raw emotion.  
  
"But yeah.  Maybe..." Stan lied.  He lowered his hands from the bars and turned toward the door, keeping Ford and the cell within his peripheral vision.  
  
As he reached for the door, Stan heard a meek request, "Take photos for me?"  
  
"I will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exmmv Yfoqeaxv Pfubo


	5. A New Form of Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford faces a whole new form of Hell he'd never imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly didn't want to write this scene but it seemed like an ideal place to incorporate something important that will be expanded on later so er... Here it is.
> 
> Um... Sorry? Again? Like... REALLY sorry...?
> 
> Warnings: Physical and mental torture, eye trauma, biting and scratching, vomiting, and generally cringe-inducing things.  
> Please skip this chapter if you'd like to avoid any of these things (Feel free to send me a message to fill you in on the important thing if you'd rather not read this part.)  
> I was thinking of pairing this with the scene after it but decided to separate it out so it would be easy to skip for anyone who is uncomfortable with it.

Ford clutched the round pillow to his pounding chest as the door clicked shut behind Stan.  His arms wrapped tighter around it in a futile attempt to calm the tremor rumbling through his entire body.  He wondered, briefly, if Stan might have been right.  If Bill had found someone else to pester, a new pawn...    
  
A laugh - that nasaly, twisted laugh, sliced straight through to his heart, locking his limbs as he realized it was coming from his own mouth.  
  
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Didn't think I'd miss your birthday, now did you?  I've got to give you your presents, after all."  
  
Ford shook his head, clenching his eyes shut as if it might help keep the demon at bay.  He offered no response, unable to imagine any witty, defiant thing to say under the circumstances.  Not that it mattered.  He figured he'd already voiced any possible retorts over the years.  Perhaps silence was rebellious enough.  
  
His eyes flashed yellow, his lips forced into a sickening grin, baring what remained of his teeth.  Bill whined through his lips, "Wow, that's gratitude for ya, huh?"  The demon looked over the body he practically lived in, tugging at its hair and twisting its beard between scratch-scarred fingers.  He lifted Ford's hand, examining decades worth of his handiwork etched in varying degrees of clarity over time-worn skin.  His eyes squinted as he noticed the gnawed state of Ford's nails.  "Yikes.  Nice manicure there, Brainiac.  Oh well.  I bet I can still work with this."  
  
Ford could only watch from a dark corner in the back of his own mind as Bill reached for the navy knit of his sweater cuff.  Part of him was glad he didn't have enough control of his own body to scream when the stubs of his nails dug in, dragging down his arm as the sleeve scrunched beneath his hand.  He had to admit, though, that the damage wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, as it had been countless times before.  
  
"So," Bill said, reaching for Ford's other sleeve, "I hear you told your brother to throw a big party today.  You could join it if you'd just agree to rebuild that portal."  He forced Ford's hand to make a matched set of reddened and blood spotted lines down his forearms.  
  
"N-no...," Ford groaned, biting his bottom lip.  
  
"Oh, that's a great idea.  We haven't done that in a while," Bill said and opened Ford's mouth wide.  He bit down as hard as possible, catching his bottom lip between his canine teeth.  
  
Ford's breaths shifted to heavy gasps as Bill allowed him momentary control.  His hands scrambled to his bleeding lip, pulling the neck of his sweater up to wipe away the dribble before it soaked into his beard.  
  
His hands stiffened and released his sweater.  It fell back into place as his eyes glinted yellow again.  Blood ran freely, dripping into his beard, joined by a fresh stream pooling in the lens of his glasses and oozing from his right eye.  "Hmm," Bill mused, lifting Ford's arms to examine his newest additions to the tapestry of scars.  "Wow," He remarked, flexing Ford's arms, "You're in pretty decent shape for being stuck down here all the time, old man.  Must be those exercise thingies you do, huh?"  
  
"C-calisthenics..." Ford provided in a the pause bill allowed him.  He wasn't sure if he spoke through opposition or compliance, through rebellion or fear of remaining silent again.  
  
"Yeah, that," Bill said in a thoughtful, sing-song tone.  "Let's see how much this meat bag of yours can handle..."  
  
***  
  
Ford had no idea how much time had passed, how long Bill had forced him through squats, and push ups or how many times he sent him running and jumping around the cell.  He punched a wall until the padding began to break down.  He practically bounced off every surface and climbed up the bars, his laugh echoing as Ford's muscles tore and burned.  Ford felt his exhaustion welling up, the nausea gagging him until Bill recognized the sensation too.  
  
"Whoa there," he said, finally slowing down.  "I'm outta here for now.  Throwing up is not something I need to experience again.  Enjoy the break but don't make me wait too long...  You don't want to lose your bathroom privileges, do you?  Or, ha!  Do you want me to hold your hair for you?" he taunted, "Ha ha ha!  Sorry, thanks to you I guess I can't.  No physical form yet, and all.  Guess you're on your own there.  Might wanna wash up a bit.  You stink."  
  
Ford nearly dropped to his knees the moment Bill left his mind.  His legs shook as he leaned against the padded wall, battling his own body to take each step closer to the bathroom.  His stomach lurched and he swallowed hard over and over, trying to choke back the inevitable for just a few more seconds.  He staggered through the door, crashing to the floor in front of the toilet just in time.  
  
With his stomach achingly empty, he sat back, wiping the sweat from his brow, his chest heaving as he panted.  He struggled to stand, failing and finally crawling into the shower before colliding with its acrylic floor.  He reached for the tap and twisted it on, letting the lukewarm spray wash over him, clothes and all.  He held out his hands, cupped together to catch what he could.  They shook as he fought against himself to slow his sips, hoping to avoid nothing but water and bile coming back up again.  When his thirst was somewhat sated, he reached up, his aching hand barely able to close around the tap to turn it to hot.  He leaned forward, his forehead pressed to the wall, finally catching his breath in the heat's temporary relief.    
  
He dreaded leaving the room but the thought of staying any longer sent an unnatural chill down his spine.  Every movement drew out involuntary hisses and groans as he changed into yesterday's clothes.  They might have been somewhat stale but they were at least dry.  He stared at the pile of wet clothes, spreading a puddle across the linoleum but lacking the energy to do anything about it.  Instead, using the sink and door frame as crutches, he hobbled back into the padded cell, his heart thumping in his throat.  He'd barely made it through the door when his eyes glowed yellow again.  
  
"Ha ha ha, you're a mess, aren't you, braniac?  Hmm, you know, speaking of brains, I think yours could use a little more redecorating.  Don't need you figuring anything out..."  His voice faded for a moment and Ford dropped onto his side, laying motionless, as if sedated, on an old couch cushion.  He could do nothing but stare blankly until Bill's voice returned.  "There.  That should do it.  Enjoy the confusion later!  Now, let's have some more fun!"  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1-12-20-5-18-9-14-7 13-5-13-15-18-9-5-19 9-19 20-9-18-5-19-15-13-5 2-21-20 20-8-5-18-5 1-18-5 20-8-9-14-7-19 25-15-21 14-5-5-4 20-15 2-5-12-9-5-22-5 10-21-19-20 1-19 13-21-3-8 1-19 20-8-9-14-7-19 25-15-21 14-5-5-4 20-15 6-15-18-7-5-20.


	6. Misremembered Misery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan couldn't wait any longer. His mind was running away on him, creating visions of the horrors his brother might be enduring. He had to at least check up on him. Even after imagining the worst, he still wasn't ready for what he found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill's birthday gifts are never gracious but this one is particularly heinous.
> 
> Warnings: aftermath of torture, eye trauma, torture mention, blood, restraints, choking.
> 
> (It might be a little bit before I update again. I'm out of draft material and have some other projects that really need to be worked on.)

It was no surprise that Stan couldn't so much as lie down to try to sleep that night.  He paced in circles around his bedroom, his slippers flopping against the floor with every step.  "What should I tell Ford about the party?" he muttered to himself, trying to think of anything that could take his mind off of the horrors he imagined his brother must be facing.  "I know.  I'll just tell him everyone had a great time...  And that's a lie."  He certainly tried to have fun.  He danced a little and ate some of the food, putting on a smile that should have won him an Academy Award.  "I mean..." he mumbled, "I guess it wasn't a total loss for Dipper and Mabel, though I can't figure out why Dipper kept showing up all over the place.  I swear there was more than one of him.  But Mabel has some friends now so that's good, right Ford...?  Grrr, I can't stand this!  I gotta go down there!"  
  
In two long strides, he was at his door, reaching for the knob.  "No.  I can't.  I promised."  He withdrew his hand, turned, and stepped away, shoulders hunched.  "And anyway, he's right.  It's too dangerous," he mumbled, absently pressing his hand over an old scar on his side.  "Argh!  I don't care!  I can't just leave him like this!"  He whipped around and reached for the door again.  "No!  Mabel and her new friends are still awake.  I guess it's a good thing they decided to keep the party going all night.  At least with all the music, no one can hear whatever's going on down ther-UGG!  I gotta go!"  
  
He skulked down the hall and into the bathroom, grabbing a fresh first aid kit and the strongest pain killers he had.  When he crept into the kitchen, he momentarily wondered if he should gather up some of the leftover cake and ice cream to bring with him.  He shook his head at himself and thought better of it.  "Check up on him first.  Cake later," he reasoned and opted for a bottle of water instead.  With the music still pounding over every creak of timeworn steps and crack of wooden floorboards, he risked speeding his steps to a light jog as he neared the gift shop.  His fingers punched the keys of the snack machine in such a frenzy that they slipped onto the wrong buttons, adding extra numbers to the code.  Growling in frustration, he reentered it for the third time and the hidden door finally popped open with a poof.  He pulled it shut behind him and ran down the stairs two at a time, the first aid kit tucked under his arm, pain killers in one pocket, and water bottle bouncing against his thigh with frigid jolts in the other.  
       
The elevator couldn't move fast enough for him.  "Come on.  Come on!"  It rattled down and finally hit the basement level with a clunk.  He squeezed through the door before it could even fully open, his chest tightening over his pounding heart.  He paused at the wooden door to Ford's cell, pressing his ear against it to listen for any sign of Bill.  He held his breath, the sound of nothing at all sending an icy shock wave through him.  
  
"Ford," he choked, giving a light tap on the door.  
  
Nothing.  
  
"Stanford?!"  
  
Still nothing.  
  
"Screw it, I'm coming in!" He spat, his voice laced in panic.  He swung the door open and burst into the room, his eyes scanning its amber dimness for his brother.      
  
"Ford!" Stan's voice rasped through his throat.  The first aid kit clattered to the floor as he sprinted to the bars.  "Shit.  Ford!"  
  
In the center of the cell, his brother laid on his side with his back to the bars, motionless aside from the rise and fall of ragged breathing.  His glasses, a pair made from shatterproof glass with a rubberized strap instead of arms, sat on the padded floor above his head, the right lens spotted with blood.    
  
"S-stanley..."  He gasped, a raspy, nearly voiceless sound.  
  
"Yeah.  Yeah I'm here.  Is HE still here?"  
  
"D-don't know," his garbled answer trailed off into a reflexive moan.  
  
"What happened?  Can...  can you get up?"  
  
"I...  I don't...  Think I...  Can...   Move," his words came in short, lisped bursts, perforated by labored breaths, as if he had to recover energy for each one.  "Everything hurts."  
  
"I brought some pain killers, and that fancy water with the electro-whatevers in it- Wait," Stan derailed his own thoughts as he neared the bars, "Why are you wearing yesterday's sweater?  And why is your hair wet?  Is that water...  Or sweat?"  
  
"B-both...  P-probably," he groaned as he tried to lift himself into a seated position gasping for air once he'd managed.  
  
Stan's heart dropped to his stomach.  Where Ford's head had been, there was a once white pillow now drenched in deep red that had seeped through onto the padded floor in brown-fringed splotches.  
  
"What the Hell happened?  Damnit.  Why is there so much blood?  Don't tell me he used something in the bathroom against you!" Stan blurted out, his mind racing.  He'd always been worried about installing that.  He knew it was only a matter of time before Bill-  
  
"N-not exactly," Ford interrupted, his back still to his brother, arms hanging limp over his lap.  He continued in mangled, nearly unintelligible words, "He...  I...  Was...  Sick.  S-so he let me g-go in there to...  y-you know.  And...  I needed to shower.  Everything hurt.  I...  Didn't want to leave s-so h-he possessed me and threatened that he'd 'take away my bathroom privileges' if I stayed too long.  S-so I h-had t-to leave..."  
  
"To come out and face him again so he wouldn't make it worse..." Stan said with a sigh.  
  
Ford swayed, his body threatening to give out on him.  Stan's arms stretched instinctively through the bars as if to hold him up, even if he couldn't reach him.    
  
"If you can't move, then I'm coming in there to help."  
  
"No!  H-he can s-still m-make me move," he reminded Stan, "R-remember the sedation incident?"  
  
"Yeah-" he stopped himself before he could say he still had the scar.  
  
"I'll try," Ford said, struggling to focus on his breathing over the burning ache of every muscle.  His movements were slow and graceless but he made it to the bars in a dragging crawl.  He held a fresh pillow to the right side of his face, hoping to prevent more blood stains on the padded floor.  
  
Stan tapped his hand, signaling for him to open his palm.  He dropped three of the pain killers into it and Ford swallowed them with nothing but blood and what little saliva his dehydrated mouth could offer, nearly choking on them, before Bill could force him to spit them out.  Stan swore his heart stopped when Ford refused his offer of cold water.  Even in the worst times, he'd at least try to get in a sip or two.  
  
"Alright, then," Stan said, licking his lips nervously.  Trying to convince his brother to show him whatever new injuries he'd been dealt was always a challenge.  It had gotten easier over the years as Ford's stubbornness on the subject ebbed but what followed seemed to get more difficult every time Stan had to see it.  He sighed, steadying himself for the worst.  "Let's see the damage."  
  
Ford released the pillow held to his face but either wouldn't or couldn't lift his head.  "Mostly muscular, this time," he said in a distorted whisper that made Stan wish he'd brought down some Tiger Balm.  "Some scratches and a split lip."  He held out his arms, hissing as he rolled his sweater sleeves up.  
  
_That was too easy_ , Stan thought, anxiety tightening across his chest like the string of a crossbow, ready to fire.  _Either he's lying...  Or he's giving up again._   He hated preferring either option but couldn't help hoping for the former.  Physical wounds, he could deal with.  It was the emotional ones that had sent his brother spiraling into deep depressions over the years.  He had his suspicions, though he loathed entertaining them, that Bill, for his own despicable reasons, had probably saved his brother's life more than once.  
  
Regardless of his brother's rationale for a peaceful surrender, the wounds he'd presented required attention.  Stan reached for the first aid kit, keeping his eyes locked on Ford, his body crouched in an easy escape position.  Bill didn't show up as he cleaned the long lines of scratches and sealed the deepest scrapes and gouges with liquid bandages but Stan's trepidation increased exponentially.  Bill was waiting.  He knew it.  He knew that damn demon was luring him into a false sense of security and he wasn't having it.  But...  He still needed to tend to whatever was bleeding so badly on his brother's face.  
  
"Split lip, huh?"  He repeated.  "So...  no mouth guard this time.  Do you think you can manage to move enough so I can fix it up?"  
  
"M-maybe..." he replied.  He turned himself so his back faced the bars again, leaning back onto them.  Stan knew entirely too well what had to be done but still dreaded doing it for more than one reason.  Partly, because he hated that Ford resigned himself over to it as if on autopilot, but mostly, he didn't want to admit, because Bill bites and bites hard.  
  
He sighed to himself as he dug a set of medical restraints out of a cedar chest below the photo of their childhood selves paired with the hat he'd personalized for Ford.  With an anxious knot welling up in his throat, he reached for Ford's left wrist and secured the first leather restraint to it, strapping it to the nearest bar.  He repeated the process on his right wrist and reached through the bars for a pillow.  The bars may have been padded but Stan wasn't going to risk Bill pounding his brother's head against them.  He positioned the pillow as comfortably as he could behind Ford, wrinkling his nose a little when his brother wouldn't, or perhaps, couldn't, lift his head enough to really hold it in place.  With a muffled "a-aah," Ford shifted his legs to his side, folded partially beneath him.  Stan fastened the two remaining restraints to his ankles, tethering them to the bars.  He stood with a grunted, "Oof," and warned, "Alright.  I'm coming in."  
  
"Mmm," Ford half-moaned.  The awkward position was uncomfortable, at best, on a good day...  But he far preferred it to the time Stan was the one who ended up with a split lip thanks to Bill's well-placed kick.  
  
Stan reached into his pocket and pulled out a keychain clip loaded with rings of keys for every lock in the Mystery Shack.  On a ring with a silver sailboat keychain was a single key, the one for the barred door between himself and his brother.  He freed it from the clip and left the remaining keys behind on the storage trunk.  With the first aid kit in hand, he unlocked the door and let himself in, each step sinking into the padded floor.  He knelt in front of his brother, forcing himself not to visibly wince at the dried blood caked in his hair and beard.  
  
"Right, then...  Can you lift up your head so I can see?"  
  
Ford inhaled deeply but did not move.  
  
Stan bit his lip, knowing that reaching for him was potentially akin to putting his hand in front of guard dog in the middle of a heist.  But he didn't lash out, or rather, Bill didn't.  
  
And Stan's anxiety tripled.  
  
Flakes of dried blood drifted down from course hair as Stan gently lifted his brother's chin.  
  
"Holy Moses, what the Hell happened you your eye?!" He nearly pulled his hand away, stopping before letting Ford's chin fall back to his chest.  
  
"The usual..."  
  
"No, I mean, it doesn't look right!"  
  
"Of course n-not..." he snapped, "Eyes...  Aren't supposed to bleed."  
  
"Ford, seriously.  Why it there so much this time?"  Stan lifted his hand, his pointer finger extended up.  "Follow my finger."  
  
Ford stared straight ahead in stubborn refusal.  
  
"Ford, this is not the time!  Seriously!"  
  
He snorted as Stan moved his hand again, slamming his eyes shut rather than participating in the experiment.  "Alright, Fine!" Ford's attempted shout was airy and strained, the words catching on his swollen lip.  "I-  I can't see out of that eye anymore."  
  
"And, what, you thought you were just gonna not tell me you're blind in that eye?  As if I wouldn't notice?  What the?  When did this happen?"  Stan shouted, realizing too late that he'd pulled his hand away from Ford's chin.  His head lowered slowly from either exhaustion, shame, or both.  
  
"It blacked out sometime today.  But...  It had been getting worse for a while."  
  
"And you just...  Ignored that?"  
  
"W-what were we going to...  To do about it, Stanley?  Tell a doctor you...  You have a man locked in your basement whose...  Whose eye is bleeding because he's possessed by a damn demon?"  
  
"I...  I don't know!  Something!  There has to be something we can do!" he paused for a breath, pinching his nose.  "Look...  I know guys.  Guys from a time in my life I don't really want to remember.  But they had these doctors who they could pay to keep their mouths shut about treating them when things went south in a deal or whatever.  I should have called one of them years ago and had them send someone to check you out but...  I ain't exactly on good terms with them, ya' know."  He sighed, reaching for the first aid kit.  "I shoulda called years ago, anyway.  And now, just 'cause I'm a coward..."  
  
"Stanley...  N-no amount of medical help could...  Could have prevented this.  You must know that."  
  
Stan snorted, "I'm gonna go get a wet cloth.  I'll be back in a minute."  
  
Ford remained silent aside from the odd hiss or groan as Stan cleaned the gash in his lip and wiped the blood away from his eye.  He patched it with gauze and tape despite thinking Bill would rip it off the second he left, or possibly before.  But there was no sign of the demon as he picked up the bloodied pillows, throwing them outside the cell in a pile to be washed or replaced, and scrubbed the splotches on the padded floor with peroxide and carpet cleaner.  Ford remained relatively still while Stan cleaned up the bathroom, clearing out the wet clothes and washing down the toilet.  
  
It was only when Stan had locked up the cell and released the last of Ford's restraints that the demon showed himself.  Red seeped through the patch on Ford's eye and Stan faltered in his retreat just long enough for Bill to wrap Ford's hands around his neck.  He squeezed as Stan's hands scrambled to free himself.    
  
"Nice job on the new TV, smart guy.  Making it so it only recognizes the brainiac's voice?  Maddening!  But, I gotta admit it was some good thinking.  Sure you don't want to put that noggin' of yours to some good use and rebuild that portal?"  
  
"Funny," Stan choked out, reaching through the bars to tickle under Ford's arms, forcing Bill to reel back, releasing him.  "Real funny.  Calling me smart while thinking I'm dumb."  
  
"Guess that's another no, huh?  Oh well.  Looks like there's a few new pawns in the game, anyway.  I'll be keeping an eye on them!"  
  
Ford gasped, falling onto his side as Bill left.  He gritted his teeth over the outright scream trying to escape his throat as he lifted himself up to his elbows.  He tried to look up but he'd reached his absolute limit, crashing back onto the floor.  
  
"S-Stanley," he croaked, "W-what happened?  Are you alright?"  
  
"Yeah.  'M fine," he lied, rubbing his throat.  "You might wanna cut down on whatever you've been doing to say in shape, though."  
  
"I...  Can absolutely guarantee I will," he gasped, his side rising and falling with heavy breaths that trailed off into the rhythmic sound of sleep.  
  
"Good night," Stan whispered, leaving him to rest.  He'd worry about fresh clothes and food for him once he'd recovered a bit.  
  
****  
  
  
  
Stan searched through the box of former fake ID's and news articles hidden in his office.  "Come on come on...  I know it's in here.  Ah-ha!"  He lifted out a wadded napkin and unraveled it, revealing a phone number scrawled in blurred ink.  "I hope this number's still good," he muttered over the clicks and whirs of the dial on his rotary phone.  After two rings, he got his answer.   
  
"Yes!  I am _incredibly_ aware of what time it is, has that ever really mattered to you?  Yeah.  It's Eight Ball.  Eight Ball Alcatraz.  Yeah.  Yeah I know.  Hey, I paid you back for that!  Interest?!  What?!  Fine.  Yeah yeah.  Would you shut up and listen already?!  Look.  Rico...  I need a favor."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vwdq lv vpduwhu wkdq kh vhhpv. Fduhixo ru kh'oo fdwfk rq.
> 
> (Yup... Ford did just remember some things about his day of Hell completely wrong...)


	7. I Don't Hate You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan attempts to smooth over the news that he found a doctor to help Ford, whether Ford likes it or not, but accidentally chooses the wrong words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: panic attack, blood mention, aftermath of torture (physical and psychological) 
> 
> A few people have mentioned a good point - that the lack of sunlight would affect Ford's health through lack of vitamin D.  
> So, I'm going to attempt to work in some solutions Stan has come up with over the years including, as mentioned in this part, regular vitamin supplements. (Thanks for the input! :D It's super helpful in building this AU. I'd definitely appreciate any other suggestions anyone might have.)
> 
> [Oh, there's art now!](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/171741800747/rum-and-shattered-dreams-illustration-for-part)  
> Stay tuned to tumblr for more :D

In the ballroom, the party raged on, though, the pounding of music and thumps of dancing feet had been replaced by the chatter and giggles of Soos, Mabel, and her new friends.  Stan took comfort in knowing Soos had stayed and was looking out for the kids.   _He's a good guy._   He thought, despite having to poke a finger in one ear and press the phone's handset closer to the other to dampen one of his uproarious outbursts.  
  
Even with the laughter currently distracting Mabel and her guests, Stan didn't dare turn on a light and draw attention to his dealings.  He couldn't hear Dipper's voice in the din and that didn't bode well.   _The kid's just like Ford, always poking around things he shouldn't be.  Though, heh...  Suppose that's a bit like me, too..._   With that thought, he slid down from his chair, crouched behind his desk, nearly underneath it, the phone clutched in his lap.  In a husky hush, he half-lied about his situation to a man he never wanted to be indebted to again, or rather, more than he already was.  
  
"Yeah I got your money and I thought this was a good opportunity to square up once and for all.  No I ain't dead, whatever gave you that idea?  I've just been layin' low.  Yeah, see, I'm visiting this old contact of mine up in Oregon, runs a tourist trap in Gravity Falls and, well, he's got a medical situation that could use some...  discretion, ya know?  Yeah.  You know anyone in the area?  Uh-huh...  Alright.  Great.  Wait, what?  One lousy phone number is not worth that much!  No.  He's trying to run a mostly legitimate business, he definitely does NOT want to owe you a favor.  Yeah...  sure.  Fine!  He'll just have to cover the cost, then.  He's not gonna like this though.  Yeah, if he's satisfied with the doctor you recommend, he'll leave the cash we both owe you with 'em.  Whatever, just give me the number, would ya?"  
  
With the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, he scrawled the number in the margin of an ancient arrest warrant with a "Mr. Mystery" bobble head pen.  
  
"Alright.  If this is some kind of quack, though, my contact ain't givin' you a dime.  Yeah, hope you get tied to a dock and eaten by gators, too.  Bye."  He nearly slammed the phone down but stopped himself before causing any more noise than he already had.    
  
"Sheesh.  All this for a lousy phone number..."  
  
A number.  It wasn't much but it was a start.  He adjusted his glasses and tilted it toward the multicolored sprinkling of party lights glinting through the window, assuring himself he'd be able to read the blindly scrawled numbers in the morning.  
  
****  
  
The sun had been up for hours but sleep continued to elude Stan.  He rubbed at the bruises spotting his throat, wondering if he should use concealer over them or make up a lie about how he'd gotten them.  He'd already had to tell the kids a few about the scratch scars and bite marks on his arms, one more wouldn't hurt, right?  
  
Speaking of the kids, thankfully, they were all still passed out from the excitement of the party, even Dipper, who, according to Soos, had tried and failed to sleep through the music and merriment of the girls' sleepover.  Stan wasn't about to bother them.  Instead, he busied himself with cleaning; packaging up leftover cookies and cake, sweeping and mopping the floors, and generally trying to diffuse the stench of stale chicken wings and potato salad.  Soos had offered to help but with the bags under his eyes growing darker, it didn't matter how much Stan would have appreciated his help and his company, he wouldn't feel right making him stay.  Besides, the lack of sleep was probably the only thing standing between him and noticing the bruises streaking Stan's throat.  So, he sent him home with several bags of chips, a leftover deli platter someone had been kind enough to cover and shove into the fridge, and his gratitude for chaperoning the extended portion of the party.  
  
Still unable to rest without an anxious knot suffocating him, Stan put together a breakfast tray with a scrambled egg sandwich, a cup of fruit salad, and a piece of leftover cake cut into bite-sized pieces in hopes that his brother would feel up to eating something.  He carried it down to the basement with a bottle of water, a single serving carton of chocolate milk, and pockets heavy with anything he thought might help make Ford more comfortable.  
  
He could have sworn he fell asleep for a moment while waiting for the elevator to descend, startling when it clunked into place on the basement level.  With the carton and bottle tucked under his arm and tray in hand, he rapped his knuckle lightly against the basement cell's door.  
  
"Come in," Ford's mumbled words melted together, sounding much like he usually did after one too many nights of drowning their sorrows.  
  
"Hey..." Stan said, peeking around the door, "You feeling any better this morning?"  
  
Ford laid on his side with his back to the door.  He moaned an unintelligible reply, barely waving a hand up in the air.  
  
"I'll take that as a no.  You sound like mom used to before her morning coffee," he risked a joke and earned a single pained "heh" from his brother.  
  
As he stepped into the room, the timed grow light in the corner flickered on for the day, illuminating a two foot tall snake plant, several spider plants, pots filled with mint, rosemary, and lavender, and a philodendron growing up a piece of lattice in a planter Stan had built in the corner.  A motor whirred and water sputtered from the mouth of a faux rock fountain he'd installed in the miniature garden with hopes that it would bring some of the outdoors in and possibly keep the air more breathable in the basement.  
  
"Hm.  Looks like Philly here needs a trim," he mentioned, partly in an attempt to fill the empty air with some sort of sound and partly as a personal reminder to snip off its yellowed leaves later.  He set Ford's breakfast tray on the floor and took a moment to water the plants.  As he turned toward the cell's bars, Ford rolled onto his back, his arms spread at his sides, chest rising and falling with deep breaths.  Stan sighed in empathy, knowing far too well what it was like to wake up to a body aching in places he didn't even know could ache.  His arm squeezed between the bars, reaching for his usual pillow and pulling it through.  He fluffed it back into shape, and let it drop to the floor.  With a grunt, he plopped down onto it and cracked open the bottle of water.  
  
"You okay to sit up?" Stan asked, "I brought some food and water and some of that chocolate milk that helps your stomach."  
  
"Mmm," he answered and rolled onto his other side, the bars now within arm's reach.  He grasped one and managed to edge himself closer.  
  
"So," Stan said, "I got your usual vitamins and some pain killers here, which do you want first?"  
  
Ford opened his mouth to answer but winced as his split lip moved even the slightest.  
  
"Right.  Pain killers it is."  Stan offered him three, but he took only two.  "Well, you must be a little better if you're good with two this time, Mr. 'Recommended Dose Even if My Head is Cracked Open.'"  
  
Ford swallowed them fast and, this time, accepted the bottle of water, lifting himself into a seated position and pouring it carefully past his swollen lip, almost thankful that it kept him from chugging the whole bottle in two seconds.  "Yeah," he finally answered in more of a stifled exhale than actual words, "Little better.  Everything still hurts but, it's dulled some."  
  
Stan wrinkled his nose, holding off on mentioning that, from the smell of things, his brother desperately needed a shower and some mouth wash as much as he, himself, did.  "Good," he said instead, "How about your eye?" he asked, wincing at the drying smudges of blood on the right lens of Ford's glasses and the soaked-through gauze beneath.  _At least Bill didn't tear it off_ , he thought.  
  
"Hurts like Hell," Ford answered, passing the half-empty water bottle back to Stan, his forehead pressed against the bars to hold himself up.  
  
"Wellll..." Stan drawled in the best I Love Lucy impersonation his gravely voice could muster, "Don't hate me for this but I found a doctor who can help us.  Hey look I brought you breakfast and some cake!" he rambled, removing the lid from the tray.  
  
"Stanley."  Ford lifted his head, his brow flattened.  
  
"I know it sucks but you gotta let someone look at that eye and I found a doctor who will come here to see you without ratting us out to the authorities.  I'm sorry but, she's coming tonight, whether you like it or not."  
  
"I don't-," Ford said, his expression blurred between stern parent and lost puppy.  
  
"Oh no."  The realization of what he'd said hit Stan like a spear through his chest.  "Ford, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"  
  
"I don't hate you."  His hands wrapped around the bars, squishing the padding beneath his fingers.  "I hate this situation, yes, but not you!"  
  
"I know-"  
  
"He altered my memories, Stanley," he babbled, his hands squeezing the bars until his knuckles nearly cracked and bled under the strain.  "He made me believe.  And I DID believe and-"  His indignation escalated until panic laced his words, his hands trembling, "It was me!  He didn't make me say those things.  He didn't make me hurt you.  I did it MYSELF because I BELIEVED-  But I never WANTED to hate you like that.  Even when I was mad about the perpetual motion machine I didn't feel like THAT.  Even when we were apart, I couldn't HATE you.  I certainly tried to but I couldn't-"  
  
"Ford, Hey.  It's over, it's alright," Stan said, cupping his hands over Ford's.  "I know things were screwed up back then and Bill messed with your head but I'm over it, I swear.  Look, it didn't even leave a scar," he assured, tugging the hem of his top up to reveal a hairy but unmarred stomach.  "The fact that you remembered the truth when I found those old photos is enough for me."  
  
"Stanley, I don't hate you.  I swear I don't hate you!  I'm sorry for-"  
  
"Ford!  It's alright," Stan reassured him, wrapping his hands around Ford's again.  "And hey, at least he's never tried to mess with your memories of me again since then, right?"  
  
"I- I don't hate you," he whimpered, his grip loosening.  "I hate THIS.  But- But not you."  He fell forward, his limbs limp and his forehead pressed against the bars again.  
  
"Yeah," Stan agreed, "I hate it too.  And I hate HIS slimy guts for doing this to you."  
  
"You should hate m-"  
  
"No.  You gotta know I could never hate you."  
  
"Ha ha, aw that's good to know!"  
  
Before Stan could move a finger, Ford's hands were on top of his.  If his nails hadn't been chewed to less than stubs, they would have pierced his skin and certainly made their best attempt to regardless.  
  
"Bet that's a real comfort to 'ol Sixer, here," Bill taunted.  "So you got him a doctor, eh?  Well, this should be fun.  Hope nothing BAD happens!"  
  
"You do still want him alive, don't you?" Stan snarled, yanking his hands away.  
  
"I suppose so.  For now," he said, twirling Ford's hand in a dismissive motion.  
  
"He needs medical help, then.  That eye could get infected and-"  
  
"Yeah yeah.  Sheesh, your bone bags sure are inconvenient, aren't they?  Smack 'em too hard or pierce them the wrong way and they shut down pretty fast-" A gurgle from Ford's stomach cut off Bill's mockery and he let out a roar of laughter.  "Wow, speaking of inconvenient, you guys sure have to eat a lot, don't you?  Ha, stomach pain is delightful but I guess I'd better let him eat something.  Don't want him passing out again.  Later!"  
  
Ford fell forward, his head pressed against the bars again as he covered his mouth, gagging on an esophageal spasm spawned from his churning stomach.  
  
"Stanley," he groaned, "'M...  Sorry..."  
  
"I know, I know.  It's alright.  He didn't hurt me or nothin'," Stan reasoned in rushed words, his hands reaching through to grab Ford's wrists before he could retreat to one of the far corners.  "Ford, wait.  You need to try to eat something."  
  
"Mmm," the noise was somehow both defiant and resigned.  His muscles relaxed, though Stan was unsure whether it was from Ford's free will or exhaustion.  
  
After running through several rounds of breathing exercises, Stan suggested, "Here, try some of this toast and see if you can eat a bit."  He lifted the top from the egg sandwich and offered it to Ford.  
  
He accepted it with a shaking hand.  Without so much as lifting his head, he nibbled on the barely buttered toast.  
  
"Any better?"  Stan asked.  
  
He gave a single nod.  "A little.  Thanks."  
  
Stan passed the carton of chocolate milk through to him, "Here, I know this usually helps.  Want to give it a try?"  
  
Ford agreed, lifting his head enough to pour a trickle past his throbbing lip.  
  
"Maybe try some of the egg now," Stan suggested, "Sorry it got cold."  
  
As Ford took calculated bites from the now open-faced sandwich, Stan risked a return to more pressing matters.  "So, anyway...  I know it's risky but I found this doctor who's coming tonight to see you."  
  
"A-alright..." Ford conceded with a husky sigh.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Mmm," he mumbled.  With his stomach settling, he reached through the bars for a few grapes from the fruit salad but winced as he bit into one.  He swallowed hard, clearing the muffle of food from his words, "You're right.  It's never hurt this much before.  I just hope HE doesn't cause TOO many issues for us."  
  
"You and me both," Stan sighed in relief and worry.  
  
"But Stanley," he said, wiping his eye in a final effort to quash any signs of the breakdown that had threatened to break out, "how do you know this doctor won't go to the authorities?"  
  
"Doctors like this are hired specifically as someone who won't," he explained, "It would be pretty bad for business if they ever did blab."  
  
"And how did you find this one?" he pried, breathing deeply to keep his breakfast down.  
  
"I uh...  I found a number in my office and called one of those guys I was telling you about.  Name's Rico," Stan said, digging in his pocket for a pill container filled with various supplements.  
  
"Wait.  You called from the landline?"  
  
"I know what yer thinkin'," he said, emptying the container into his palm.  "Traceable number, right?"  
  
"I don't claim to know much about this sort of thing but, isn't that dangerous?"  
  
Stan tapped on the container until a multivitamin, Vitamins B, C, and D, Iron, Zinc, and a combination of tea pills for depression and anxiety filled his palm.  He held them out to Ford who took the vitamins two at a time and the tea pills four at a time, wincing as he poured water past his scabbed lip.  
  
"Well," Stan explained, "Granted, I may have kinda sorta panicked and slipped up there.  Getting a bit sloppy and slow in my old age, I guess.  But ya' know, I figure that might just make this the one place they won't look for me if they decide they wanna make my life difficult or...  nonexistent.  I can hear the conversations now.  'Is he really stupid enough to call us from a traceable number?  What if he  _wants_  us to think think it's a traceable number?  Would we be stupid to think he was stupid enough to do that by accident?  Or are we stupid to think he thinks we're stupid enough?'"  
  
"That is the most confusing train wreck of a thought process."  
  
"Exactly.  And anyway, they think 'Eight Ball Alcatraz' was just passing through and left the money he owed with a contact who could safely deliver it.  And, considering this doctor is just another contact of theirs who probably doesn't know what Eight Ball looked like thirty years ago in order to guess what he might look like now, they'll never know that Stanford Pines and him are the same guy."  
  
"And neither at the same time."  
  
"Right.  Best case scenario for them is that they manage to trace my aliases back to Stanley Pines and see that Stanford is his brother.  Besides, paying them off oughtta get 'em off 'a my back once and for all, anyway."  
  
"Do you really have enough?"  
  
"Yeah.  Finally.  Ya, know, you'd think these goons would give a guy a chance to pay 'em back...  Hard for a dead man to come up with money he didn't have and all.  Anyway, I should have enough to cover the doctor too.  Not like we got insurance for this or anything."  
  
"I'm certain there are no policies that cover eye trauma due to chronic possession, anyway," Ford attempted to joke past his reddened cheeks and damp eye.  
  
"Yeah.  Well, speaking of that, how's about you get a shower and we get that gauze changed?  The kids are still lights out so I figure we got a bit of time."  
  
"A-alright.  Speaking of the kids, though, did you take any photos at the party?"  Ford asked, reaching through the bars for a cube of cut cake, hoping it would help the vitamins go down.  
  
"I did but they ain't developed yet.  Maybe that can be somethin' to look forward to after we get that eye fixed up?" Stan suggested.  
  
"Maybe..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gll yzw blf xzm'g svok srn ivnvnyvi gsrmth blf mvevi pmvd, Hgzm.
> 
> Ha ha ha ha ha.... I still have no idea how this is going to end. Guess we'll find out together?


	8. Hanging Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Braum makes a house call at Stan's request but her recommended treatment is risky for everyone involved. Stan is reminded that his brother is far worse with puns than he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Eye trauma, restraints, possession, panic attack, blood
> 
>  
> 
> [Hey look, there's art again!](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/171946397488/the-man-downstairs-chapter-7)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to [KillHitlerAgain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillHitlerAgain) for the idea about Stan providing Ford with a surveillance monitor with a live feed to give him some sense of interaction with the outside world.
> 
> Note about future chapters: I will not be going in to any gruesome details about anything. Honestly, I feel like whatever the audience can imagine to fill in the blanks is probably more powerful than anything I could write because it comes from their own personal experiences and imagination. But still, I'll continue to put up warnings in case anyone would rather avoid the content.

"Hey, Ford," Stan said as he slipped through the basement door.  
  
"Good evening, Stanley," Ford greeted him with attempted enthusiasm.  "You're here early tonight.  The sun is still up," he said, nodding to a small black and white surveillance monitor mounted beside the door which displayed a live feed from outside of the gift shop.  
  
"Yeah, I asked Wendy to take the kids out tonight," Stan explained with a chuckle, "Told them I had another date with Susan."  
  
"Another?" Ford asked with a quirked eyebrow.  He lifted himself from the padded floor with a groan and the burn of sore muscles.  His arms draped over the horizontal bar in an attempt to prop himself up.  "Wait wait wait.  Does that mean you actually DID have a date with her?  And you never told me?!"    
  
"Oh yeah.  It, er...  Didn't exactly go well so I guess I forgot to mention it," Stan explained, his voice muffled as he dug around in the trunk filled with medical and emergency supplies.  He stood and turned, one hand shoved in his coat pocket.  "Guess I'm just not cut out for this romance stuff."  
  
"Can't say I'd fare any better.  You know for yourself how little luck I-"  
  
"Ah-ha!"  Stan caught Ford's wrist, slapping a restraint around it and tethering it to the closest bar.  
  
Ford's eye gleamed yellow beneath his glasses, red seeping through the gauze covering his right eye.  
  
"One down, three to go," Stan muttered.  
  
"Awful nice of me to let you get a head start, wasn't it, smart guy?"  Bill taunted, jerking Ford's three free limbs as far back from the bars as he could.  "Oh, sorry, guess you'll have to come in to get the rest!"  
  
"You really should know by now that ain't gonna work," Stan said with a shrug.  He reached through the bars with one hand wondering which reaction he'd get this time, a counterattack where he'd be able to grab Ford's other wrist despite the bite marks he'd accumulate in the process, or more pulling away that wouldn't matter once he was able to tickle under Ford's arm and throw Bill off enough to pull him against the bars again.  _No attack?  Fine.  Tickle it is._  
  
Within seconds, he'd grappled Ford up against the padded bars, facing him, and fastened the second restraint.  
  
"Sorry to have to do it this way but I don't want the doctor having to actually go in there to look at your eye," Stan explained, hoping Ford was still present enough to hear him.  
  
"Oh, that's right, the doc's coming tonight.  This is gonna be hilarious!"  
  
"You know," Stan said, hoisting himself up to his full height and adjusting his suit coat, "You're a sadistic little shit and when I finally do get my hands on you..."  
  
"Oh big threats from the meat-sack.  What are you gonna do?  Punch me?  Oooh I'm so scared."  
  
"Yeah.  Maybe I will," he huffed and dove to the ground to reach for Ford's left ankle.  He dodged the flailing of his right foot through the bars the best he could as he strapped the third restraint into place.  Rubbing a sore spot on his forehead, he added, "I don't know how you manage to kick so hard through the bars.  Maybe I'm not as smart about physics laws as either of you but I swear that defies 'em.  Ah well.  Last one."  With that, he reached through and snagged Ford's pant leg and part of his sock, pulling his ankle close enough to fasten the fourth restraint.  
  
"Oh look!"  Bill squealed, looking up to the monitor, "She's here!"  
  
Ford's eye dimmed back to its natural brown, his head tipping forward against the bars as blood oozed down his cheek from the soaked gauze covering his right eye.  "Not a moment too soon," he breathed, "This is incredibly uncomfortable."  
  
"I'm sorry," Stan said, rubbing his bruised shoulder.  
  
"I suppose it isn't exactly pleasant for you either," Ford mumbled, his split lip throbbing from the strain of Bill's speech stretching it.  "I'm sorry, Stanley.  How bad is it?"  
  
"Nothin' I can't deal with.  Seriously, don't worry.  It's just a few bruises," he answered, waving his hand as if to dismiss the matter.  "I'm gonna go let her in. Be right back."  
  
"Right...  I'll just"  
  
"Stanford Pines, don't you dare..."  
  
"Hang around here, I guess."  
  
"And they say my puns are bad," Stan grumbled, massaging his forehead as he stepped out the door.   _At least he's trying to have a sense of humor about things_ , he thought.   _But I'm not sure if that's a good thing or if it means things are so bad that all he can do is laugh, anymore._  
  
  
****  
  
  
Stan opened the gift shop door, squinting in the final light of sunset.  He raised his hand, shading his eyes to get a clearer look at a woman with rainbow streaks in her hair.  She was his height before climbing the two stoop steps and wore a white lab coat over blue scrubs.  Beside her was a second woman, stout and wearing a suit Stan could tell from experience hid an arsenal of weapons beneath its layers.  
  
"Hello.  Mr. Pines?" the rainbow-haired woman asked.  
  
"Yup.  Dr. Braum, I'm assuming?"  
  
"Yes.  And this is my assistant, Lottie."  She said, motioning to the woman behind her who nodded to Stan, a gesture offered with respect.  
  
"Thank you for agreeing to such a late appointment, Dr. Braum.  Come on in," Stan said, motioning to the door.  The doctor glided up the two steps and loomed above Stan, large in every way.  Despite it, her steps were light against the wood planks, as if she floated above them.  Lottie, however, thumped across the boards with purpose in every footfall.  Stan remembered that walk.  He hated being that uptight with minute details of his stance but it's effectiveness in intimidation could not be denied.  
  
"Well," Dr. Braum said with a shrug, "it is a bit later than our normal working hours but who am I to question a paying customer?"  
  
"Yeah, true," Stan grumbled, annoyed to be on the paying end of such a deal.    
  
"So where...  and who is the patient?"  Dr. Braum asked as Stan closed the door behind them.  
  
"Well, first of all, you uh...  You've probably seen some things...  And stuff...  In your days, right?" Stan asked.  
  
"That's an understatement," Lottie muttered.  
  
"More than you can imagine, I'm certain," Dr. Braum agreed.  
  
"Especially working around these parts, right?" Stan pried, "Seen some weird things no one can explain?  Things that don't fit in to what we think exists?"  
  
"Pfft, that ain't the half of it," Lottie said with a chuckle.  
  
"Mr. Pines," Dr. Braum said with a kind smile, "I once treated a vampire gnome with an arm full of Gremloblin quills.  I assure you I've seen everything at this point and will not judge."  
  
"Keep that in mind, will ya?" Stan said, leading them to the snack machine and punching in the access code.  The secret door opened with a poof eliciting awe from his two guests.  "Alright.  So my brother, Dr. Pines, is down here," he explained, motioning to the stairs.  
  
  
****  
  
  
"I have never seen anything like this before in my life," Dr. Braum said, staring at the yellow eye and snaggletoothed grin framed between padded bars.  "Lottie, have you seen this before?"  
  
Lottie shook her head, her face showing no expression.  
  
"Is he possessed?  He's possessed, isn't he?  This is an actual, honest-to-goodness, demonic possession, isn't it?"  
  
Stan sighed in exasperation and mumbled, "I kinda figured he wouldn't let this be easy for us," he cleared his throat and spoke an introduction he hoped he wouldn't have to, "Dr. Braum, meet Bill.  Bill, Dr. Braum."  
  
"Um...  pleased to meet you Dr. Pine-"  
  
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" Bill's nasal whine lisped as it passed Ford's lips, "Fordsy isn't home right now.  Leave a message and he'll get back to you whenever I decide he can!"  
  
"So..." Stan snorted, "Yeah.  Possessed.  That's definitely NOT my brother right now.  That's his body, yeah, but...  That's a dream demon named Bill inside."  
  
"Fascinating," Dr. Braum said, tilting her head with wide, curious eyes.  "Is it always like this?  How long has he been possessed?  Is your brother still in there or...  Somewhere else?  If he's not possessed all the time, what's it like when he isn't?  What exactly are the effects of long term possession on the human body?"  
  
"It's complicated," Stan answered, cringing as Bill slammed Ford's head against the padded bars.  "He's been possessed on and off for about 30 years now."  
  
"Oh ouch," Dr. Braum hissed with an empathetic grimace, mirrored by her assistant.  "Looks like that demon makes him hurt himself a lot.  I wonder what the psychological effects are.  And what are the effects of repeated possession for so many years?"  
   
"Sheesh, you sound just like him when he's himself," Stan said with a fond smile, a memory of Ford's babbled queries while their childhood selves explored the beach surfacing in his mind.  His smile sagged to a stern frown and he snapped, "He ain't your science experiment, though.  Look, we've tried everything from exorcisms to holy rituals, magic spells to purification and even something to do with moonstones because my brother said they have some kind of power but nothing will get rid of this monster."  
  
"Aaand you want me to try?" Dr. Braum asked, shrugging to Lottie.  
  
"Hey, if you want to, I'd be glad to try whatever you think might work, but that ain't why I called you here.  It's cause of that eye of his," Stan answered, pointing to Ford's gauze-covered eye and the blood pooling in the lens of his glasses and dripping down his face.  
  
"Ah, yes...  Eyes don't normally bleed like that.  What exactly happened?"  
  
"That, right there, is the most visible effect of being possessed," Stan said.  He reached past the bars, narrowly avoiding gnashing teeth, and lifted Ford's glasses to his forehead, the elasticized strap stretching to its limit.  "His eye bleeds after he's been possessed for a long time and after 30 years of this, he can't see out of it anymore."  
  
"Did it always bleed THIS much?" Dr. Braum asked, reaching in past the chomping teeth and jerking of Ford's head.  She managed to grab a corner of the tape holding his gauze patch in place and tore it off.  With her hand out of harm's way, she tilted her head and leaned in for a closer look.  Bill lunged toward her, making a barking sound but neither she nor her assistant flinched.   
  
"No," Stan answered, his eyes wide in awe of the fresh blood streaming from his brother's swollen eye.  "This is by far the worst it's ever been."  
  
"Well,  Let me try to get a better look at it.  Do you mind if my assistant um...  Restricts his motion?"  
  
"I was hoping to avoid that but, alright," Stan said with a huff.  He reached into his pocket and retrieved his keys, separating out the sailboat keychain and single key attached.  As he unlocked the door, he added, "But if you hurt him, it's comin' out of your pay."  
  
Lottie's grip was gentle but unrelenting as Dr. Braum examined Ford's eye.  Bill had disappeared for the duration, leaving Ford to face the humiliating circumstances alone.  Stan didn't want to watch but couldn't look away, not out of some sense of fascination, but because he needed to know Ford was not being harmed in any physical way.  As for psychological and emotional, he figured those ships sailed and hit their respective icebergs right about when the doctor and her assistant stepped into the room.   
  
Finally, Dr. Braum signaled to Lottie to release Ford.  She ducked away, her retreat graceful like a dance step over the padded floor, as Bill returned, thrashing Ford's body back and forth.  
  
With Lottie back in relatively safe space, Stan locked the door and asked, "So...  What do you think?"  
  
"Mr. Pines," Dr. Braum answered, pocketing her penlight, "I'm sorry but, I must advise that we remove that eye.  It must be incredibly painful for him at this point and there is no way of restoring his vision in it."  
  
"Son of a bitch," Stan cursed, more at himself than the situation.  When he'd thought a physical injury was the lesser of two evils, he hadn't considered it would mean his brother would lose an eye.  
  
"If we leave it, it will only get worse," she explained.  
  
"Shit.  So, what, he'll just have to wear a patch for the rest of his life?"  
  
"For about two months, perhaps.  But, from the looks of it, we should be able to preserve the structure with a temporary implant and fit him with a prosthetic once he's recovered."  
  
Stan breathed deeply, trying to sift through too many thoughts all at once.  "I gotta talk to Ford about this first," he said, squinting at the once again yellow eye behind the bars, "But, if we're gonna do this, then, what do you need me to do?  I got a bed here we could use..."  
  
"Here?  You've got to be kidding me," Dr. Braum snapped, a horrified look on her face.  
  
"It's not that simple," Lottie added, shaking her head.  
  
"We need to transfer him to my surgery center," Dr. Braum explained.  "This procedure requires a sterile environment and proper care and medication for at least 72 hours while he recovers.  I have a private room reserved at my facility for cases like this.  My staff and I will take special care to assure no one knows he was ever there."  
  
"And just how are we supposed to get him there?"  Stan asked, an incredulous look in his eyes.  
  
"Can we use a sedative?" Lottie suggested.  
  
Stan's laugh, raspy and grim, shook loose memories he wished to forget.  "No," he said.  "That demon doesn't sleep.  In fact, for the first few years, he would only possess my brother when he was asleep, or, as we learned the hard way, sedated, because it was easier for him to take control then."    
  
"Ha ha!  Now that I've gotten used to Brainiac's head space, I can pilot this flesh ship whenever I want!"    
  
"Oh hmm," Dr. Braum pondered, "Well, with what I've seen here so far, I think it's safe to assume you have and know how to use a straitjacket?"    
  
"Damn," Stan spat.  "Yeah.  I do."  
  
"Oooh we're really going out somewhere?" Bill crooned, "This should be fun!  Might even make it worth being bundled up in that contraption.  Hmm," he hemmed and hawed, contorting Ford's mouth until the split in his lip nearly reopened, "I suppose I should give this guy a minute to enjoy the news!  Be back soon!"  
  
"...S-Stanley..." Ford gasped, his head lowered and arms hanging limp from the restraints, "We can't..."  
  
"Oh...  You uh...  You heard?"  
  
"M-mostly," he answered.   
  
Dr. Braum's shoulders drooped, a mournful expression crossing her face.  Lottie's brows furrowed, worry etched across her forehead.  
  
"Something about transferring me to a surgery center..." He said, pausing for breath mid-sentence.  
  
"Yeah.  I'm sorry, Ford but, the doc here says she's gotta remove..."  
  
"I heard."  
  
"Hey doc," Stan said, turning to the two concerned women, "Can you give us a minute to talk this over?"  
  
"Certainly.  Come on, Lottie," Dr. Braum said, motioning for her assistant to follow her out of the basement cell.  
  
Once the door clicked shut, Stan turned back to his brother and whispered, "I'm so sorry, Ford.  I-"  
  
"You don't need to be sorry.  I just...  What if he?"  
  
"We won't let him hurt anyone," Stan vowed in a tone that almost convinced Ford they could assure it.  
  
A moment of silence built up his apprehensions until they exploded, "What if someone finds me there?  Or what if they turn us over to the authorities?  You could go to jail because they'll think you were keeping me here against my will!  And they'll believe this is a treatable disorder and admit me to an institute but a damn demon literally possessing me is nothing like that!  How many could he potentially hurt in a place that's meant to help people?  And when none of their treatments work, what will they do?"  
  
"Ha ha ha!" his voice morphed into Bill's nasal whine.  "Yeah.  What WILL they do, smart guy?"  
  
As Stan stared at a loss for words, Ford's voice returned, "Stanley...  We can't."  
  
"We can," He said, "and we have to whether we like it or not.  I know it's asking a lot to trust these people but remember what I said?  If they slip up and out us, they won't have a business anymore."  
  
"That's easy for you to say, you're not the one who's about to have a someone cut out the remains of your eye while a demon could-"  Ford sighed, trying to regain his composure.  "Stanley, I-  I'm..."  
  
"I know...  Shit, I'd be terrified, too.  If there's a Hell, I think this is it.  But, we WILL find a way to keep that monster out of your head and just...  Just think of the kids.  Think of all of us going fishing together.  Think of us sharing a birthday again.  Think of all the places we'll travel to when we're out at sea, finding treasure and weird things for you to research like we always dreamed.  Come on, breathe with me, in one two three four five six and out one two three four five six seven eight."  Stan ran through the breathing exercise five more times until Ford, and he, himself, calmed down a bit.  
  
"Using a fork to eat again," Ford added, "Drawing with a real pen.  Playing cards and board games with the kids.  Going to the diner for a burger..."  
  
"I realize there are no guarantees," Stan said, leaning against the bars, "This is scary shit.  But it scares me more to think of not trying."  
  
"At least there's a chance if we try."  
  
"Yeah," Stan managed a smile for Ford's sake and offered a scrap of his usual self in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood,  "Some philosophical mumbo jumbo like that."  
  
"Alright...  Lets get this over with, then," Ford said in resignation, looking up with a smile that wouldn't fool a nearsighted alien.  
  
"Hey, since you're going to be um...  Restrained anyway, you want a shave and hair cut?" Stan asked, "I know you said it's a pain and not to worry about it anymore but the electric razor's not so bad and maybe it would make you feel a bit better?"  
  
"I suppose," Ford's answer wavered, "Bill has taken to pulling out hairs again.  Though, I'm not sure it actually will make me feel better..."  
  
"What do you...?"  
  
Ford lowered his head, his hair concealing the majority of his face.   
  
"Oh.  Yeah," Stan said with a compassionate sigh.  He knew a mask when he saw one.  Maybe they didn't always cover one's face, much like his suit, he supposed, but they always seemed to help hide something, or, perhaps, provide comfort in some way. "I get it."  
  
"Maybe just a trim," Ford compromised, "And perhaps a shave.  Though, it grows back so fast I'm not sure it's worth it."  
  
"I guess we'll see how it goes," Stan said.  "Well, should see if they can admit you tonight?  It'd be convenient with the kids out of the house and all."  
  
"I suppose."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7-15-15-4 12-21-3-11 23-9-20-8 25-15-21-18 19-21-18-7-5-18-25.
> 
> Yeah... Dr. Braum is a nod to Jheselbraum. But is it this AU's version of her? It's up to you to decide. ;)


	9. A Convenient Argument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Bill have an argument. Stan takes advantage of the opportunity. The next day introduces a complication Stan hadn't considered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a lighter chapter this time. Dare I say there's even some family fluff?
> 
> Warnings: Blood, restraints, straitjacket
> 
>  
> 
> [ Look! cthulhu-of-the-night made art! It's beautiful! ](https://cthulhu-of-the-night.tumblr.com/post/172075250123/read-and-loved-rum-and-shattered-dreams-the-man)
> 
>  
> 
> [ KillHitlerAgain ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillHitlerAgain) made a good point that there is no reason Ford shouldn't have a clock in his basement cell so I went back to the previous chapters and edited one in. It doesn't change anything in the plot, just makes more sense environmentally.  
> I kind of love the idea of the world building for this au being a team effort because you guys have great ideas that I don't think of. So, I definitely appreciate the input! Thanks!
> 
> And thanks to my friend, Star and Crossbones for helping me work out some of the logic (or sometimes lack of) in the argument in this chapter!

Stan cracked open the basement cell's door, peeking into the portal's former control room.  He squinted through the blue light from a small work lamp clipped to the broken control console and found Dr. Braum kneeling to poke at the shell of an old supercomputer.  Lottie had found Ford's old crossbow and had pulled it from its wall mount, examining it and peering through its sight, aiming it at the elevator dial.  
  
"Dr. Braum?" Stan said softly.  
  
"Yes?" She jumped up, backing into Lottie who fumbled with the crossbow.  Dr. Braum ducked as it clattered to the ground.  Stan closed himself on the other side of the door out of pure instinct until the realization hit that the crossbow hadn't been loaded in more than twenty years.  He opened the door and reached for it, his heart twisting as his hand wrapped around its stock.  
  
He'd once wrestled it from his brother's grasp, narrowly avoiding a direct shot to his stomach in the struggle and nursing a deep gash for weeks after.  He wondered why he'd even bothered keeping it, why he hadn't stomped on it until it was in splinters and scraps.  He considered doing so right then and there but, he couldn't.  It wasn't his decision to make.  He'd already altered so much about Ford's home and belongings out of necessity for their survival.  Besides, it had once brought his brother a sense of protection, false as it may have been, in the midst of his paranoia.   _But is it paranoia when a demon is actually messing with you?_  Stan sighed and hung it back in its place.  
  
He turned to the doctor and her flustered assistant.  "He wants to go ahead with surgery," he said, his arms crossing over his chest.  "So what's next?  Any chance we can get him admitted tonight?"  
  
"That shouldn't be a problem," Dr. Braum said, lifting herself from her knees.  " I had a feeling this would be a long night so Lottie and I took the day off to rest up."  
  
"Right then.  Guess that explains why this is costing me so much.  Anyway, we need to figure out how we're going to do this," Stan said, ushering Dr. Braum and Lottie back into the amber glow and mint-scented dankness of the basement cell.  "Oh," he added, glancing at Ford to assure his eye wasn't glowing, "I should introduce you proper-like.  Dr. Braum.  Lottie.  THIS is my brother, Dr. Stanford Pines PhD.  Er, but not like a you doctor, like a sciency doctor."  
  
"Greetings," he said with a waggle of six fingers from his restrained hand and a smile like one of Soos's Jack-o'-mellon's.  Despite the blood oozing from his closed right eye and the deep ache of every muscle, he remained cordial and requested, "Please, call me Ford."  
  
"Nice to meet you, Ford," Dr Braum replied, returning his attempt at a wave.  
  
Stan lifted the creaky lid on the supply trunk and reached in for a canvas strap.  As he tugged on it he explained, "Doc, here, says they can take you tonight.  That okay by you?"  
  
"Yes," He answered, "Whatever gets me out of this increasingly uncomfortable position faster.  I can't feel my hands anymore."  Ford squeezed his fists a few times past the tingling of his fingers.  He pursed his lips and separated them again instantly as his bottom lip throbbed.  
  
"You okay with us using the straitjacket?"  Stan asked, stumbling back as the trunk released it along with a roll of gauze, a bottle of peroxide, and a new tin of Tiger Balm which clattered to the carpet at his feet.  
  
"Do I have a choice?" Ford asked, his shoulders drooping in exasperation as he watched Stan unravel it.  
  
Stan opened his mouth to answer but Bill's cackle interrupted, yellow flashing from Ford's eye, "No.  But I do!"  
  
"No you don't," Ford said flatly, as if willing it to be factual, shaking his head like it would help to disperse the demon's presence.  
  
"Oh, but I think I do. It suuure would be nice to have a free hand or two, wouldn't it?" Bill threatened.  
  
Ford's eye reverted to its natural brown.  His gaze followed the straps and canvas draped on the floor up to Stan's hand, followed his arm up his a to his sagging shoulders, and finally, settled on his worried brows.  "It's Fine," he commanded.  "Use it."    
  
"See," Bill sang, "I make the choices around here.  You don't want me to hurt anyone so you're gonna go along with it even though you hate that thing as much as I do."  
  
"No," Ford huffed, "I’m choosing to be restrained because it pisses you off."  
  
Dr. Braum raised an eyebrow, leaning over and whispering to Stan, "Is this...  normal?"  
  
"It happens sometimes," he said, sounding almost annoyed as he reached into his pocket for the key to the barred door.  
  
Ford closed his eye, grappling with the notion that Bill might have control over his choice.  Stan took advantage of the opportunity and motioned to Lottie to follow him into the cell.  He waved his hand at Dr. Braum and mouthed, "distract him."  
  
Dr, Braum nodded, edging away from the cell door and toward the TV in the corner.  Leaning on it in her best attempt to appear casual, she said, "Let me get this straight.  Neither of you actually wants to be restrained, right?"  
  
"Yeah, Fordsy, here, has the missing teeth to show how much I hate that thing," Bill answered, his whining masking the click of a key and the squeak of the barred door easing open.  
  
"It is uncomfortable, yes," Ford explained, "As are your tantrums regarding it, but it functions well as a safety measure when others are involved."  
  
"But," Bill added, unaware of the approach of two sets of silent steps over the padded floor, "You gotta admit you won’t use it if no one else is involved because you’re scared of what I’ll do to you.  And, of course, because it’s generally uncomfortable."  
  
"Hey,  Hey guys?" Dr. Braum sputtered, snapping her fingers to gain Bill's attention before he noticed Stan and Lottie kneeling on either side of him, "I’m going to need a decision on who’s choice it is.  Do to um…" she paused, trying to think of something that sounded official but panicked and blurted, "HIPPA and OSHA regulations, I can’t restrain you without proper consent."  She folded her hands over her lap as she leaned, one leg lifted slightly as if it made her seem like more of an authority on the topic.  
  
"First off," Ford pointed out, "HIPPA and OSHA have nothing to do with that and now I question your integrity as a surgeon.  And secondly," he insisted, an edge of desperation to his voice, "If you leave him free it might _actually be_ an OSHA violation when he sends you all to the emergency room.  Look.  I already said I'm fine with-"  
  
"See See!" Bill interrupted, "He just admitted it.  It's me forcing his decision."  
  
Stan and Lottie slid the restraints away from the bars with the skill of a team of pickpocketers but left them buckled around Ford's ankles.  Bill shifted Ford's gaze downward at a twinge of the restraint rubbing against his sock.  Dr. Braum gave a sharp, "Hmm," and drew his glowing eye back to her.  "I’m sorry, Bill, but I’m going to have to side with Ford on this one.  It’s still his choice. I mean, he could always say 'screw it, I don’t care if anyone gets hurt.'"  
  
"Thank you, Doctor," Ford said with a sigh.  
  
His eye flickered yellow again, drifting to the side where Stan's knee cracked as he stood.  
  
"And!" Dr. Braum practically shouted, jolting forward then attempting to reclaim her casual lean.  She adjusted her volume and added, "it sounds, to me, like Bill would have to forfeit his reason to be free in order to actually be free, Correct?"  
  
"Indeed.  My pro-restraint choice would only change if he wouldn't harm anyone," Ford agreed.  
  
Bill's eye flashed red in annoyance, head nearly bashing against the bars.  Dr. Braum recoiled at the sight.  Stan and Lottie's hands flinched as they reached for the restraints around Ford's wrists.

Bill snarled, his eye flicking towards Stan, "That doesn’t change the fact that Fordsy is still going to be miserable!"   
  
"And apparently lose some teeth?" Dr. Braum stammered with a cringe, equally disturbed by the idea as she was desperate to draw Bill's attention back to her.  
  
"Or get a broken nose," Bill added, chuckling, "I'm flexible."  
  
"Your tantrums are merely proof of your misery in the matter," Ford muttered, closing his eye and shaking his head.  
  
Stan and Lottie seized the moment, their hands loosening the restraints around Ford's wrists.  
  
"But they make you miserable and that’s delightful!" Bill sang, tipping Ford's head back and forth between the bars.  
  
"Except, my misery is mitigated because I know I'm stopping you from hurting anyone else and that makes you even more miserable!" Ford clenched his eye closed, shaking his head as he became more desperate for logical replies.  
  
"Hey, tell yourself whatever you have to," Bill said, shrugging his shoulders in the moment before the restraints slid away from his wrists.  
  
Stan nodded to Lottie and passed an arm of the straitjacket in front of Ford.  She reached out with caution and snagged one of its straps.  They unfurled it, ready to wrap it around him.  
  
"Shut up."  With his eyelid clamped tight and legs and arms freed, Ford clenched his fists and played right into Stan and Lottie's plan, driving them down in defiance and right into the armholes of the straitjacket.    
  
"Aw," Bill opened Ford's eye, staring through the bars at Dr. Braum as if he wanted her to hear, "That's no way to talk to your muse, now is- Gah!"  Bill blurted as Stan and Lottie tugged on the thick canvas, wrapping it around him.  
  
"Yeah," Stan said with a grunt, wrestling him onto his stomach on the padded floor, "Looks like the final choice is actually ours and we choose not to let you hurt us, Bill."  
  
"Wow, nice way to treat your brother!" Bill taunted, whipping Ford's body around like a goldfish dumped from its bowl as Lottie sat on his legs and latched the restraints around his ankles together.  "No wonder Fordsy hates you!"  
  
"Shut up.  Shut up!  SHUT UP!"  Ford spat.  "You...  Abhorrent abomination..." He breathed, his arms slack in compliance as Stan fastened the straitjacket's straps.  "Stanley..." he turned his head, struggling to look up to his brother, "I don't..."  
  
"It's okay.  I know he's a lying son of a bitch," Stan reassured him.  
  
Bill bucked and babbled, spinning tales of the early days when Ford had considered him a muse, as they carried him up the stairs and out to Dr. Baum's SUV.  "Don't listen to him," Stan said, wondering exactly how many of his stories about Ford and their deal were exaggerated.  It didn't help that Ford painted his versions in hues of self-hatred and guilt...  Or that Stan couldn't be sure how many of his memories Bill had altered.  
  
Once buckled into the back middle seat, for Ford's safety, Bill relinquished control and Ford's eye returned to brown, his head drooping in shame tangled around exhaustion.  
  
"Damn, Ford," Stan said, leaning through the open door, "That was a great distraction you pulled off there.  Getting Bill to argue with you like that to throw him off.  Classic.  I didn't think you had it in ya."  
  
"Distraction?" Ford mumbled.  "Yes.  Distraction.  Indeed.  That was definitely, a fully intentional distraction."  
  
"Yeah, that was...  Interesting," Dr. Braum commented, ducking to fit through the door and buckling herself into the passenger seat.  
  
"It was kind of fun,"  Lottie added, walking around to the drivers side.  "Not often I get to practically hogtie someone these days."  
  
"Right...  So, guess I'll follow behind you two in my car, then?"  Stan said, rubbing his bruised shoulder.  
  
"That would probably be best.  Here's my card in case you lose us along the way," Dr. Braum said, passing her business card to him.  "See you there."  
  
  
****  
  
The next morning, Stan awoke to a throbbing head and less than an hour of sleep spent thrashing through nightmares.  "Damn yellow eyes," his voice grated over his throat, provoking a phlegm-riddled cough.  He reached for his dentures, fit them into place and sat up, his legs dangling over the edge of the bed.  His chest tightened the moment he rose, his mind looping "Is he alright?" over and over.  He'd wanted to stay.  He'd even thought of calling Soos to meet the kids at the shack to look after them but Dr. Braum insisted he return home to sleep, that there was no reason for him to stay for the duration of his brother's surgery.  She was right, of course.  It wasn't a life-threatening injury, nor a life-endangering procedure, even if Bill did decide to cause complications.  But that didn't quell his anxiety.  
  
His brother was bound in an uncomfortable and strange place with a demon running around in his brain.  Stan knew he would appreciate a familiar face nearby if he was stuck in a hospital bed.  Yet, Ford, himself, insisted he should go home and rest, that it was the most logical thing to do.  Stan hated logic more than ever when he finally agreed.  He wished his twin good luck and promised he'd visit in the morning even though Dr. Braum mentioned that Ford would likely sleep through the day.  
  
And despite it all, Stan still wished he was there.  Something felt off.  But something always felt off when Bill was involved.  So much so, that it made him question his own instincts more often than he wanted to think about.  
  
He reached for his glasses and slid them on, his eyes focusing through dimness on the piles of laundry he'd never gotten around to folding.  They'd have to wait.  Everything would have to wait.  His bones cracked and settled as he stood, leaving behind the warmth of blankets and the sagging crater in the center of his mattress.  His slippers flopped and knees cracked with every step down the stairs and into the hall.   _Gotta call.  Gotta find out-_  
  
"Grunkle Stan!  You're awake!"  Mabel shouted as he trudged past the kitchen.  
  
"Hmm.  Yeah.  I guess this counts as awake," He grumbled, scratching his lower back.  
  
"We made breakfast," Dipper said.  "We were just about to come get you."  
  
"Yeah, but now you're here so come and get it before it gets all soggy," Mabel insisted, grabbing his hand and dragging him to the table.  
  
It looked nice, he had to admit.  They'd folded some paper towels like napkins and set out some of the spoons he'd "collected" over the years.  Each place setting had a mismatched bowl filled with Overly Sensitive Owl cereal and milk along with a fresh cup of Mabel Juice.  Apparently Mabel had knitted a tablecloth and made a centerpiece of flowers arranged in a brown meat can decorated with ribbon and glitter.  He couldn't help but smile.  It was almost like breakfast at home on a Sunday, back when ma picked up waffles from the restaurant next door and claimed to have cooked them herself.   Even if she lied about the food, she still set a nice table and made sure they all spent some time together, going so far as to make their pa look up from his newspaper to acknowledge them every once and a while.   
  
He may have grumbled more than he meant to but the simple breakfast made especially for him was a more than welcome gesture.  _Ford was right,_ he figured, _letting the kids stay the summer was a good idea.  I hope he gets to meet them soon.  I hope we'll all sit here together someday._  
  
Though he couldn't stomach much with every nerve buzzing, he ate what he could and thanked Dipper and Mabel.  
  
"Now go get dressed, ya gremlins," He said, "I'm taking you into town today so you can burn some of that cash your parents sent you.  I got a lot of work to do around this place and I don't need no shenanigans."  
  
"Yay!  Shopping day!" Mabel shouted, already pelting up the stairs.  
  
"Shopping?  Really?"  Dipper asked with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Hey, there's a museum there.  And a library.  You like that sort of nerdy stuff, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess," he answered with a shrug.  
  
"Go get ready, then, pronto!"  
  
With the twins upstairs, Stan grabbed the phone, setting it on the table and digging in his pocket for Dr. Braum's card.  Metal legs scraped against wood as he pulled out the chair and it creaked in protest when he flopped onto it.  He dialed the number listed on the card, poking at the remnants of cereal floating in pink-tinted milk as the number rang through.  A male voice answered and rattled off a recorded list of options.  
  
"For appointments, press 1"  
  
"Ugh," Stan groaned, "Customer service."  
  
After a series of beeps that sounded like they were trying too hard to be cute, the same male voice answered, "Good morning, Braum Surgery Center, how may I direct your call?"  
  
"Yeah, I need to talk to Dr. Braum."  
  
"She's not available at the moment but I can put you through to her assistant."  
  
"Yeah, that'll work, thanks."  
  
After a moment of music that belonged in a spa yet did nothing to soothe Stan's nerves, Lottie answered, "Braum's Surgery Center, this is Lottie speaking, how may I help you?"  
  
"Hey, it's Mr. Pines.  Any news on my brother yet?"  
  
"Yes.  I apologize that Dr. Braum cannot speak to you directly, she's with another patient at the moment but I am happy to tell you that the surgery was successful.  You can visit whenever you'd like."  
  
Stan exhaled in relief before a thought stabbed him in the heart.  "What about any...  complications?"  
  
"Ah yes, _he_ certainly didn't make it easy for us but Dr. Braum is an incredibly talented surgeon.  _He_ didn't stand a chance of screwing things up for her."  
  
"Good.  Good," Stan sighed.  He wanted to ask at least a hundred more questions but he figured he may as well get there as soon as possible and find out the answers for himself.  "I'll be there as soon as I can.  Thanks."  
  
"Our pleasure."  
  
After getting himself cleaned up and dressed, Stan ushered Dipper to his car where Mabel was already buckled into her seat, vibrating in excitement.  "I hope there's a craft store, I need a bucket of glitter, at least five pounds of rhinestones, and staple gun!"  
  
"I think there's a staple gun in the medicine cabinet, Pumpkin," Stan said, not even registering any idea of what she might need one for nor why it ended up in the bathroom in the first place.  
  
"I'll just check out the museum, I guess," Dipper said with a shrug, buckling himself into the backseat next to Mabel.  "So, like, you're just going to leave us in town alone?  Isn't that irresponsible and giving us too much freedom or something?"  
  
"Yeah, pretty sure things like that are what uncles are for," Stan said, waving it off.  It wouldn't be that irresponsible, right?  After all, he and Ford ran around the city streets and all the way to the shore on their own when they were just eight.  Though, they did have a tendency to sneak into condemned buildings and dumpster dive for treasure.  
  
As if it might mean something, he added, "Just don't go gettin' into any trouble."  
  
Stan buckled himself into the driver's seat and headed down the dirt road toward town.  In the back seat, a bag rustled and crinkled until it tore open and the smell of cheese-like product saturated the air.  Twin crunches split through Stan's pounding head as the kids enjoyed their nacho-flavored chips but he pressed forward, focusing on the road ahead.  As he neared town, he slammed on the brakes, the obstacle ahead registering as merely a large and vaguely white object through his sleep-deprived haze.  
  
He honked the horn as Mabel let out a laugh.  "Nacho earrings," she said,  "I'm hilarious."  
  
"That's debatable," Stan muttered, lacking the energy to even look at whatever she was talking about, his limited attention focused on the vehicles ahead as if on autopilot.  "Aw come on!  What's with all this traffic?  And why is it all...  covered wagons?  Oh no!  No!  No!" he plead, slamming his foot on the gas, "Not today! Not today!" he chanted, swerving down a side street and slamming on the brake as pedestrians in historic prairie dresses and a pair of geese crossed ahead of him.  He slammed the gearshift into reverse, stepping on the gas again and swerving backwards.  
  
"Grunkle Stan, what's going on?"  Dipper asked, leaning forward, his brows furrowed in concern.  
  
"We gotta get out of here before it's too late!" He explained, gruff panic in his voice.  His foot hit the breaks again as a horse and wagon pulled up and stopped behind him.  Before he could shift back to drive, another parked in front.  He looked to either side, searching for any escape but it was too late.  "They've circled the wagons!  We're trapped! Nooooo!"  
  
Mabel perked up, turning to look out her window at the wide eyes of a passing cow, excited by the townspeople's costumes and roaming farm critters.  Stan barely heard her as she said, "I have a good feeling about today."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pibbm tbii, Pfubo.
> 
> (Yeah, I'm just picking which codes to use for these at random. I really should have thought this through better. ;))


	10. It's Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both brothers find their hands tied for the day, more literally than they would have liked. Stan tries to take action while recent events catch up to Ford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Whee, more art.](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/172186563053/you-know-how-to-end-this-rebuild-the-portal-and)
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings: Restraints, hospital setting, mental breakdown
> 
> Since this is getting kind of long, just thought I'd mention that it's still going to remain a gen fic. I'm not planning on adding anything that would change the rating and there are no plans for a tragic ending. I mean, granted I still have no clue how this will actually end, the only thing I know is that I want it to be satisfying.

"For cryin' out loud.  Why does the sun have to be so sunny?"  Stan muttered to himself, his fingers reaching for his face in a futile effort to wipe away the sweat dripping into his eyes, clouding and stinging them.  His back burned beneath the black of his suit, both from the afternoon heat and the ache of hunching forward.  He'd been locked up before, thrown into sweltering cells, but never like this, never immobilized, his discomfort displayed in the middle of a street for Gideon, of all people, to pelt him with tomatoes.  At least the guts had finally dripped off of his glasses enough for him to catch a blurred view of the Pioneer Day Marketplace.  
  
Frustrated, he squirmed and wriggled, tucking his thumbs against his palms and squeezing his fingers together, narrowing his hands as much as he could and tugging for the thousandth time but there was no squeezing them through the wood planks encircling his wrists.  The bruises streaking his neck throbbed as he struggled against the pillory.   _At least I'll have a good excuse for those now_.  
  
His hands drooped, his mind wandering back to his brother's predicament.  Was he alright?  Lottie had said the surgery was a success but that Bill didn't make it easy for them.  What, exactly, did  _not_  easy mean?  He knew they were keeping him restrained but that had never completely stopped Bill before.  What had that monster tried to do?  What horrors was he subjecting Ford to?  Had he hurt anyone?  Ford, himself?  Stan's stomach flip-flopped at the thought, turning cartwheels beneath his girdle.  The doctor had said he would likely sleep for most of the day.  Knowing Bill, Stan could barely hope it was true.  But if not...  
  
He bucked against his bonds again.  
  
_He must be worried.  He must be going out of his mind.  I'm supposed to be there!  I'm supposed to be helping him get through this and I'm stuck here because this dumb town thinks this is a joke, Argh!  I gotta get out of this!  Wait..._  
  
The marketplace was empty for the first time all day.   _Finally.  This is my chance!_   He stretched and strained, leaning his head toward his hand, his fingertips reaching under his fez for one of the bobby pins slid into the lining for just such an occasion.  
  
_Got it!_  
  
Just as he bit down on it, an attempt at old-time chatter caught his ear.  He rolled his tongue around the pin, hiding it in his mouth as a family glared at him on their way to the fruit and vegetable stand.  With their backs toward him, he took a chance, guiding the pin's ends closer and closer to the lock.  "Come on.  Come on!" he grunted through gritted teeth.   _Almost there-_  
  
His heart dropped alongside the pin, shattering as it clinked against the gravel.  
  
He knitted his brows as Pacifica bent to pick it up, his blood boiling when she pinched it between perfectly manicured fingers, holding it so close but just out of reach.  "Well," she taunted, "If it isn't Mabel's uncle, Mr. Pines.  Looking for this?"  
  
"Yeah yeah," he grunted, "Whadda ya want, money?"  He wasn't sure why he said that.  Maybe it was sarcasm.  Or maybe a way of saying that's exactly what he thought of their family; that all they cared about was money.  Either way, he wasn't about to give her anything.  Not after the way she treated Mabel at the party the other night.  
  
"I want you to say." she demanded, "that the Northwest Family is the best family in Gravity Falls."  
  
"Oh sure.  You want that in writing?" he snidely suggested, biting back the "bullshit!" that nearly blurted out instead.  
  
In his sleep deprived delirium, he bit down on the pen she offered and scrawled "You stink" on the notepad held before him.  "Mmm hmm.  There we go," he mumbled between clenched dentures.  
  
It was worth it.  For a split second, the horrified look on her face was worth giving up...  What?  A dirty bobby pin?  That's what she'd offered in exchange, wasn't it?  A chance to struggle in futility for his freedom?  It wasn't like she'd actually help.  It wasn't like she'd even give it back to him if he'd complied.  It was definitely worth it.  For a second...  
  
"HA!  I did that with my mouth!" he cheered, driving in the insult like a nail through gelatin.  
  
Her sharp whistle snapped him back to reality.  The family rummaging through boxes of tomatoes turned, clutching several in their hands.  
  
He barely had a chance to protest, "Oh come on!" before chunks of red splattered against his glasses and dribbled down his chin.  Not much could get to him anymore, not after the experiences he'd rather not remember from his youth.  But this?  This was humiliating.  Despite the heat and sweat, his blood ran cold as he thought,  _Is this how Ford feels?_  
  
  
****  
   
  
Everything hurt.  It wasn't the sharpness of torn muscles from a few days ago but the dull ache of discomfort.  If only he could roll over onto his side, if only he could bend his knees, or fluff his pillow.  But no.  Even if he could, it wouldn't help.  He'd close his eye and drift into sleep just long enough for vivid visions to invade his mind, visions of his hand holding a knife, blood dripping from the blade.  Who's was it?  His own?  Stanley's?  "No.  No!  Not the kids!"  
  
He awoke with a start, the machine next to him registering the pounding of his heart in angry beeps, a strap across his chest forbidding him from bolting upright.  He shifted his wrists in his restraints, cold sweat bubbling up, prickling his skin as his finger stretched for the "call nurse" button on the bedside rail. "Please don't please don't," he chanted to himself, breathing as deeply as he could past the nausea threatening to make a mess of him.  His hand relaxed as the lurching of his throat and stomach subsided.  
  
He shivered, wishing he could move enough to lower the blanket covering his chest, drenched in sweat and growing colder as he calmed down.  He wished he could scratch the itch on his nose or move the dampened hair wadded up at his neck.   _Maybe a haircut wasn't such a bad idea after all.  Maybe I should ask Stan when he gets here.  Where is he?  Why hasn't he gotten here yet?_  
  
Light beamed into the room as his door slammed open and a nurse rushed in.  She squinted at the monitor beside him, sighing as the numbers edged back into a normal range.  
  
"It was just a nightmare," he explained.  "It's fine."  
  
"Are you sure?  Do you want me to stay with you for a while?" she asked, removing his blanket, exposing every strap binding him in place but saying not a word about it.  
  
He turned his head away as he answered, "No.  It's fine."  
  
She stuffed the dampened blanket into the laundry bin then pulled a fresh one from a white cupboard and unfurled it over him.  As she switched out his pillow for a fresh one she offered again, "I don't mind-"  
  
"No.  Just go!" he flinched at his own words, at their gruff tone, and corrected, "I mean, please.  I'd like to rest."  
  
"Alright.  But call me if you need anything," she instructed.  "I'll be back in a bit with your medications."  
  
The door clicked shut and the room fell into darkness again.  
  
It felt like he'd been lying there for days and he couldn't take it anymore.  Maybe it would have been nice to have the company but he didn't want the added discomfort of a new face, a personality he didn't understand, a stranger pitying him.  He wanted the one person he still knew.  Maybe it was petty but it was a comfort he needed, one promised to him before he agreed to any of this.  
  
The minutes stretched on for hours, each second ticking in slow motion, yet the moment they passed, they blurred together into the haze of exhaustion, nausea, and an empty ache on the right side of his face. _What time is it, now?_  he wondered.  
  
For the sake of maintaining privacy, there were no windows in his room, only a light he could dim or turn off from a button on the bedside rail.  There was a clock but he could only see a blurred blob on the wall without his glasses.  
  
He sighed.  Last time he'd checked it was just after one pm.  Maybe it was time to check again.  His finger reached for the buttons on the bedside rail, the tip brushing over them until it reached a circular one, the TV's power button.  It flickered on and a commercial for Gideon's Tent of Telepathy assaulted his senses.  
  
_Ugh.  Even without being able to see him, that kid's voice is nearly as grating as Bill's._  
  
He reached for one of two sets of arrow shaped buttons, accidentally changing the channel and turning the volume up before finding the one that turned it down.  He flicked through channels until he found the local news station.  After hearing from a doctor talking about leg cramps again (try having one when your ankles are tied to the bed) and that there was a zero percent chance of rain with an unusually high temperature of 80 degrees, the broadcast looped back around to the headlines.  "Hello, it's two o'clock on this sunny Tuesday and this is Shandra Jimenez with your afternoon news.  It looks like Pioneer Day is in full swing-"  He pressed the power button, silencing the cheerful voice.  
  
_Two.  It's been less than an hour and I swear it's been a year.  Where's Stan?  Is he alright?  Was there a problem?  Did something happen to one of the kids?!_  
  
"Did he finally decide taking care of you is a pain?  Is he just going to leave you here alone?  These are the real questions."  
  
"Shut up, Bill."  
  
"Hey, they're your thoughts, not mine.  I'm not this pathetic," the demon's voice echoed through his mind.  
  
His mindscape appeared as a study this time.  The wooden room with its antique desk and spiral staircase felt somehow familiar, like something from a recurring dream but he couldn't quite place it.  Towering against its walls were shelves filled with specimens, boxes, and books, each representing a train of thought or a memory.  Bill dug through the piles scattered across the floor, scanning labels and titles.  
  
"Hey, watch it.  You're making a mess of this place again!" He complained, dodging books and jars which flew off the shelves as if an earthquake shook them loose.  He picked up a box and read the label aloud, " _What if he's left me here?_   Ugh, another one?  Didn't we already open two boxes of this earlier?"  He tossed it aside, the lid falling off and papers tumbling out.  He lifted a metal tin and removed its top, reading the index cards inside, " _What if he's never coming back?  What if he hates me for ruining his life?_   Don't you have several encyclopedia sets about that?"  He threw it down, the cards scattering over a tipped box filled with scrolls.  
  
A shelf loaded with jars containing what looked like convulsing lava caught the demon's attention.  "Ooooh!  Angry thoughts.  I like these!" he sang.  He picked one up and read the label aloud, " _Why isn't he here?_!  Nice."  He tossed it over his angled side, the jar shattering against the desk's top.  He lifted another, " _He promised!_ " and tossed it, breaking it against the back of a chair.  " _I'm so tired!_   Fabulous.  _Everything hurts!_    Perfect."  Each jar shattered as Bill tossed it aside, the contents writhing and growing, engulfing scrolls labeled  _He wouldn't do this to you, There must be a good reason, He's done so much for you,_  and  _Of course he cares_.    
  
Bill picked up another and read, " _How could he leave me here like this?!_   Pfft.   _How could he do this to me?!_   Yeah, Fordsy.  How could he do this to you?" Bill drove in the thought, "Doesn't he know you need him right now to get through this?  Oh good one!  _How could he leave me alone with you_!"  
  
"Stop it.  Thoughts are complicated and there are some you realize you should reconsider because life has proven them wrong!"  
  
"Has it, though?  Do you really trust him?  Oooh doubt," he hummed, poking at test tubes filled with brown sludge.  "This is fun.  Oooh, yes.  Good point.  Why WOULD he give up his life to stick around and protect you?" he asked, picking up each tube, commenting on its label and letting it slip through his fingers to the ground.  "Indeed, who would ever want to do that after you nearly killed them more than once?  Oh, true.  True.  There IS still a chance I'll make you do it again.  Maybe this time we'll succeed.  Yes.  You can't deny it.  He DOES have every right to leave."  
  
"Stop..."  
  
"Hey, I'm just callin' 'em as I see 'em."  Bill turned, his eye opening wide as the shelf unit in the corner rattled as if coming to life.  "Hey.  What's with your apathy and distractions shelves?" he asked, floating over to examine a series of gray, uniform books, interspersed with wildly colored volumes titled  _Puns, Dark Humor,_  and  _Obsessions._   The unit shook again, rattling against the wall, fringed in red light and flickering shadows.  
  
He leaned in closer only to somersault backwards as the unit tipped toward him.  It teetered, creaking and cracking, books shaking loose from the shelves until the entire unit fell forward.  
  
Behind it was a weathered door, beating against its frame as if a beast behind it wanted out.  He floated closer to read the letters scratched into its wood.  
  
" _It's gone_."  
  
The recovery room's door opened again, cutting off Bill's investigation and snapping Ford out of his mindscape.  The nurse stepped through, her thin frame silhouetted against the hall's light for a moment before the door shut behind her.  
  
"Go ahead.  Ask her," Bill nudged, his voice present only within Ford's head.  "Ask her where your brother is.  See if he called or anything.  Let her know I won't let you sleep and that the pain and nausea are getting to you.  Tell her about your nightmares, tell her how weak and sad and pathetic you are!  How you're freaking out because it's finally hitting you that-"  
  
"No."  
  
"No?  Ah yes.  'Don't worry them.  Don't make a fuss.  Don't be annoying.'  Why don't you just pretend to be asleep then?" Bill suggested.  "That'll satisfy her and make her leave you alone."  
  
Ford closed his eye and did just that, regulating his breathing past the immeasurable discomfort of his immobilized limbs, of the empty feeling, imagined and real, under the gauze covering his stitched eyelid, and of the IV preventing him from dehydration.  
  
"Dr. Pines?"  The nurse whispered but he did not reply.  She repeated a little louder.  No response.  "Oh good.  Rest is the best thing for you right now.  I just need get your vitals and give you your medications and then I'll let you be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> L nhsw klp dzdnh. 
> 
> This chapter was going to encompass more of the story but it started to get too long so I broke it into two parts. Hope to have the next one up either tomorrow night or by Monday night.


	11. Novel Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exhausted, Stan is finally set free and rushes the surgery center. Ford struggles to come to terms with the reality he's been avoiding. Stan employs a solid coping mechanism in an attempt to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: emotional breakdown, restraints, arguing, nightmares
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to everyone for your comments, questions, and input. It's all an inspiration and a huge help in building this AU. :D

Stan wanted to wrap Dipper and Mabel in a crushing hug when they released him from public imprisonment.  But, he held back, mostly, because he figured they wouldn't want to be smothered in bits of tomato and old man sweat, but partly, because his back teeth had been floating for the past few hours and the slightest squeeze could be disastrous.  He jogged to the nearest bathroom as fast as his simultaneously numb and aching legs would carry him.  Every step sent a jolt through his sore soles but he made it to an outhouse and not a moment too soon.  
  
Once relieved, he pumped a bucket of water from a Pioneer Day prop and dumped it over his head, half amazed that the pump functioned and half unsurprised, given the town's obsession with the event.  He pumped and poured another bucketful, despite his rubbery arms, scrubbing dried tomato from his hair, brows, and stubble.  He mentally thanked Soos for stopping by that afternoon and cleaning the bulk of the tomato mess off before it could bake in the sun (and, he had to admit, for keeping him company for a while).  After drying his glasses with a cloth from his pocket, he rushed back to the car and kids.  
  
"We gotta get out of here!" he said, both out of sheer desperation to leave and because, by this point, he'd broken his promise to Ford.   _Visit in the morning?  It's going to be night by the time I get there at this rate._   Once buckled in the driver's seat, he cranked up the heat, shivering as cold water dripped from his hair and soaked through his coat.  
  
On the way home, he spun a story about how he had been planning to take photos of creepy looking things in the woods for a new exhibit in the shack and how he'd have to go out tonight to do it since this was their only day off for the rest of the week.  "Heh, might be better anyway," he embellished his lie, "Things look a lot spookier at night."  
  
"Oh can I come with you?!" Dipper asked, his seatbelt stretching as he leaned forward in his seat.  "There are so many weird things out there, and I have this book that can probably help us find some of them!"  
  
"Thanks, kid, but no thanks.  I-uh..." Stan pondered a minute, knowing very well that if these kids were anything like he and his brother were, giving them a flat no would only make them more determined to follow him.  "Hey, maybe next time," he reasoned, "but this time I could really use your help making banners and decorations for the shack's fair this weekend.  Mabel, you think you're up for that?"  
  
"Are you kidding?!  I have buckets of paint just waiting for a project like this!  Dipper, can we?!" she begged, grabbing Dipper's vest and shaking him.  "Please please pleeeeaaaase?!"  
  
"Yeah.  Alright, I guess," he answered, tipping his hat back into place only to have it knocked off when she stretched over to hug him.  
  
"Great," Stan said with a relieved sigh, "Give Soos a call when I drop you off.  He's got the plans for everything.  Tell him I'll let him rig up the dunk machine if he comes over to help you."  
  
  
****    
  
With the kids safely back at the shack, Stan careened through the wooded roads.   _Shit shit shit shit shit_ , his mind chanted, his heart thumping in double-time to the rhythm.  His eyes squinted in the setting sun's glare but he plowed forward, the Stanmobile practically flying off the peaks of hills as he left Gravity Falls and the valley behind.  He sped around corners, nearly tipping up on two wheels, his hands crushing the steering wheel in his grip.  
  
The sky shifted from hues of orange and pink to electric blue while buildings replaced towering trees along the roadside.  Ten minutes into the city, Stan searched for 5th street and the distinct, domed roof of the surgery center.  He cursed as he passed the turn anyway.   _I like this doctor's style, though,_  he thought,  _hiding in plain sight._   He pulled an illegal u-turn in front of a honking pickup truck that he swore wasn't there a second ago.  As he swerved into the parking lot, the surgery center's neon sign lit up against the darkening sky.  He spun the wheel, parking haphazardly next to one of two other cars in the lot, Dr, Braum's SUV.  
  
"Ugh.  Ow!  Son of a-"  He moaned as he climbed out of the car.  His back cracked as he straightened it, muscles protesting from his shoulders straight down through his to thighs and calves.  It felt like the soles of his feet were bruised and bleeding from being stuck on them all day.  In the car's heat, it seemed like his hair and coat had nearly dried but the evening breeze cut through him as if he'd just dumped a pitcher of ice water over himself.  
  
In a series of grunts and groans, he hobbled to the sliding glass door.  When it refused to open, he pounded on the glass, hoping someone would hear him.  The janitor looked up from cleaning behind the reception desk and nodded.  She hurried to the door and unlocked it, sliding it open manually.  Stan sped through the moment he could fit.  
  
"Dr. Braum told me you might show up tonight," She said, closing and locking the doors.  
  
Stan pushed, pulled, and tried to slide open the double doors leading back to the surgery and recovery rooms but they refused to move.  
  
"Hold on and I'll let her know you're here." The janitor said, stepping behind the reception desk.  She picked up the phone's headset, her gloved fingers prodding at the phone's buttons.  
  
Dr. Braum picked up on the first ring.  
  
"He's here," the janitor explained, "Yeah, the old guy in a suit and fez.  Yeah.  Alright.  I'll buzz him through."  She pulled off the headset and pressed a button behind the desk.  "You can go on through now," she instructed.    
  
Stan rushed into the back hall, past dark and empty rooms, prepped for surgery the next morning.  He nearly ran into the door that opened on the hall's left side, his shoes' soles squeaking against the hardwood floor as he stopped.  The door closed revealing a woman nearly larger than it with rainbow streaked hair pulled into a bun.  
  
"Oh, Dr. Braum.  I-"  
  
"Where the HELL have you been?" she reprimanded, her arms perched on her hips as she towered above him.  "You said you'd be here as soon as you could!"   
  
"This IS as soon as I could!"  He retorted, looking up to her with bloodshot eyes.  
  
"When you told my assistant that this morning, we assumed it meant less than thirteen hours later."  
  
"It did-"  
  
"We called you twelve times today and couldn't get a hold of you."  
  
"Why?  What's going on?  Is Ford alright?" Stan blurted, shifting his body to peek down the hall past Dr. Braum.  "Did  _he_  do something?"  
  
"Your brother's been having some nightmares that are affecting his heart rate and blood pressure," Dr. Braum explained, her hands lowering from her hips, one settling in her lab coat's pocket.  "The few times one of our nurses caught him awake and tried to talk to him, he told us to go away and, to be honest, she doesn't know him well enough to determine if it was him saying that or...  the other  _him_."  
  
Nightmares were normal for both Ford and Stan, himself.  That was no surprise, though, he figured, it might be alarming to someone who's not used to it...  And even more alarming to him as he realized that he and Ford  _were_  used to it.  How had things gotten to the point where nightly nightmares were just a part of life?  Stan sighed and said, "Look, this has been one of the worst days of my life," he exaggerated, though not by much, "and, believe me, that's saying something, so can you let me by so I can see my brother, already?"  With a determined wrinkling of his nose, he bumped past the doctor, unsure of where he was going but willing to find out.  
  
"Wait, there's something I need to tell-"  
  
Before she could finish her sentence, Stan spotted a door on the right marked "maintenance" and grabbed the latch, rattling it when it wouldn't budge.  
  
Dr. Braum sighed and said, "Hold on.  I have to unlock it from the nurses station."  Her lab coat billowed behind her as she stepped around the desk and pressed a button.  The door buzzed and Stan was inside before she could say another word.  
  
The room was notably smaller than the others and smelled of disinfectant.  Darkness set in as the door closed behind him, the room lit solely by the strip of light under the door and illuminated numbers on a screen to the right.  From what Stan could tell, there were cabinets, a wash station, and a door standing ajar to his left.  To his right was Ford's bed, a rolling table, and various machines and monitors.  Beside the bed was a blocky chair.  He stepped forward, reaching for the nearest arm of the chair.  
  
"Ford," he said in a husky whisper, using the chair to guide him to the bed.  "Stanford?"  
  
No answer came aside from the rise and fall of breaths.  The back of the bed was raised about halfway and a blanket covered his brother's body up to his shoulders.  As Stan's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see Ford's head was turned away, his unbandaged eye clenched closed.  
  
"Ford.  I can tell you're not asleep," Stan said, with a muffled moan as he eased himself into the chair.  "I got here as soon as I could.  What happened?  How are you?"  
  
"Nothing.  I'm fine," he answered flatly.  "Are you alright?" he muttered in a detached tone, "And the kids?"  
  
"The kids are fine but it's been a Hell of a day for me.  I'm a bit sore but otherwise alright."  
  
"Good.  That's good."   
  
"Ford.  What's wrong?"  Stan asked, the wooden legs of his chair scraping as he angled it closer to the bed.  
  
"Nothing.  I was just worried about you when you didn't...  Nevermind."  
  
"Ford, I can explain-"  
  
"I said it's nothing!" He snapped, his limbs tensing against the restraints beneath his blanket.  "Just go away.  Please."  
  
Stan sighed, placing a hand on the bedside bar.  "No.  I'm not leaving until you talk to me.  What happened during surgery?  They said Bill didn't make it easy for them.  What did he do?  Has he been bothering you today?" Stan rattled off questions, his tone becoming more on edge as he spoke until a grim chuckle silenced him.  
  
"Oh sure," Ford said, "You're fine not being here all day and now you won't leave."  
  
"That wasn't my fault!  I-"  
  
"Get out," he demanded.  "Leave me alone!"  
  
"Bill...?  Or me?"  
  
"Both of you!"  
  
"Ford..."  
  
"Where were you all day?!" he shouted, his eye closed tight as if to prevent the flood of emotions.  "You promised...  And I TRUSTED you!  And you just left me here alone.  With  _him_!"  
  
"Ford, I'm sorry!" Stan shouted, bolting up from his chair.  "I tried to get here but I got arrested!"  
  
"Arrested?" Ford, asked, concern woven into his inflection, as he turned to face Stan.  His hand reached for the light switch on the bedside rail and he pressed it once for its dimmest setting.  "For what?" he asked, the machine beside him registering his quickening pulse as he dreaded the answer.   _Did Rico turn him in?  Did one of his aliases catch up with him?  I never even considered-_  
  
"Ironically, for trying to get here faster," Stan explained.  
  
"What?"  Ford asked, his shoulders relaxing and pulse slowing.  His head lulled back against the pillow, nausea and sleepiness draining him.  
  
"I tried to drop the kids off in town but it was Pioneer day.  My car got stuck in the mud and when the mechanic wouldn't help me, I got angry and the cops thought it would be cute to lock me in the stocks all day."  
  
In a groggy half-yawn, his inhibitions obliterated, Ford corrected, "Pillories."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Stocks are for your ankles.  Unless it's changed over the years, the ones they use on Pioneer Day are-"  Ford's slurred words trailed off into another yawn.  
  
"And here I was worried about you all day, you pretentious-!"  Stan paused as his brother's eye slipped shut, his breaths deep and rhythmic.  "Did you seriously just fall sleep?"  Stan whispered in annoyance.  Exasperated, he flopped back into his chair, massaging his eyelids as he listened to the beeps of the monitor behind him.  In less than a minute their pace quickened again, nearly blurring together.  Stan leapt up, turning to look-  
  
"Wait..."  Ford mumbled, drawing Stan's attention back to him, "Why can't I...?  I can't...  I can't move!"  He jolted awake, his breath coming in heavy pants, sweat drenching his face.  
  
"It's alright," Stan said, using the bed rail to lift himself out of the chair.  "Ford, it's alright.  It was another nightmare.  It's alright," he reassured him in as calm a tone as he could muster, his hands reaching over the bedside bar to wrap around Ford's.  
  
The door slammed open and Dr. Braum rushed in.  "Dr. Pines?!"  She blurted, jogging to his bedside.  
  
"Another nightmare," Stan explained, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced in the dim light as he looked up to her.  
  
"It's him," Ford panted, "He won't let me sleep.  He keeps-.  Every time I fall asleep, he-."  
  
"Wait," said Dr. Braum, leaning over the bed, "How can that be?  Lottie and the nurses said you were mostly sleeping today."  
  
She flinched back as Ford opened his eye, yellow and slit down the center by black.  "He's almost as good of an actor as the con man, here," Bill answered, nodding to Stan.  "Funny.  This whole set-up is too good to be true!  All I had to do was make sure he was awake for it all."  
  
Stan's eyes widened at the implication.  "All?  What do you mean, all?"  
  
"That surgery thing was an interesting experience," Bill said with a laugh, "Pretty great, I thought.  But I didn't want to hog all the fun so I just dropped in from time to time to make sure Fordsy, here, didn't miss anything."  
  
"I had a feeling," Dr. Braum whispered, shaking her head.  "We warned him there was a possibility he could wake up, especially under his circumstances, but he still said to go through with it.  
  
"Wait.  You're telling me he was awake during surgery?!" Stan barked.  As Ford's eye dimmed and closed, his head tipping to the side in slumber, Stan hushed himself to an angry hiss, "And you didn't know it?!"  
  
"We could tell when that demon showed up for a split second every so often and accommodated it the best we could but otherwise, it's nearly impossible to tell in any patient.  The paralytic in the anesthesia immobilizes the body and maintains a lower heart rate and blood pressure."  
  
"That's what your assistant meant when she said he didn't make it easy, then?"  Stan asked, pinching his nose.  
  
"Yes.  We didn't want to mention it to you over the phone since we weren't actually sure.  It made no sense to worry you since we thought you were pretty much on your way."  She paused, finally taking in the sorry sight of the man standing before her.  "What happened to you, anyway.  You look like you need a few stiff drinks and about a week's worth of sleep."  
  
"A cuppa coffee would be a life saver right n-"  
  
"No..." Ford croaked.  "No.  Please!  Stanley, I'm sorry!"  He thrashed under his blanket, bucking against his bonds.  His eye peeled open, his breath coming in short bursts.  
  
"Ford, it's alright.  I'm alright," Stan assured him, "I'm safe."  He looked up to Dr. Braum and requested, "Can you give us a minute?"  
  
"Of course," she said, her steps nearly silent as she approached the door.  "I'll be in my office finishing up some dictation if you need me."  
  
The door clicked against it's frame, its motorized lock latching behind her.  
  
"I can't do this anymore," Ford croaked,  looking up to him with dampness welling in the corner of his eye, "I'm tired.  I'm so tired."  
  
"Yeah.  You've been through Hell," Stan empathized.  
  
"More than that," he said, turning his head away, "I'm tired of all of this.  It's gone, Stanley.  My eye is gone.  It's GONE!  I'm tied to a bed because a demon might make me hurt myself or someone else.  I've destroyed thirty years of both of our lives!  Probably forty of yours-"  
  
"Ford, you can't blame yourself for that," Stan's words went unheard as Ford continued.  
  
"And now, I finally get to be someplace other than the house for the first time in twenty of those years and all I want to do is go back to the basement.  And to top it all off, I don't want to do  _this_  because I can't even wipe my own damn nose!"  His breath hitched, coming in ragged gasps.  He sniffled, his face burning as he fought the impending flood.  "I just want to sleep."  
  
"I wish I knew what would help you get some rest," Stan mumbled, uncertain of what else to say.  
  
Ford turned his head to face his twin, his cheeks flushed and eye bloodshot.  His voice trembled as he asked, "Stanley, do...  Do we look  _anything_  like each other anymore?"  
  
Stan thought for a moment.  Their ears were the same size and shape, but Ford's left ear now had two notches cut into its helix thanks to an unexpected nap more than twenty-five years ago.  At one time, their noses were identical, now they'd both been misshapen by breaks, scars, and old age.  As for everything else, well...  There were few similarities anymore.  Ford's hair had turned a darker shade of gray, streaked with the near-white of Stan's.  Stan's arms grew muscular and his tummy, round, but Ford's legs retained muscle while the rest of him thinned.  
  
After considering it all, he answered, "We're still the same height, I guess.  But, no amount of differences is gonna change that we're still family.  If it bugs you, though, do you want to try the shave and hair cut idea?"  
  
"Maybe..." Ford debated aloud, sniffling and stifling his outburst.  "Yes.  Probably."  
  
"Ford," Stan said, resting his hands over his brother's, "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you today."  
  
"I'm sorry you had such a terrible day."  
  
"Says the man still going through Hell."  
  
"It's not like it's a shitty day contest," Ford said, forcing a crocked smile.  
  
"I guess," Stan said with a shrug.  
  
"Well, you know about my day," Ford said, leaning his head back in the search for comfort and prying for the distractions he'd sorely missed all day, "Tell me about yours?"  
  
"Sure," Stan said, his aching back forcing him down into the chair with a grunt.  He animated the story of his day through exaggerated hand motions and expressions in true showmanship style.  Ford sneered at the mention of Gideon, mentioning that the kid still creeped him out.  He gasped over the first tomato pelting and almost laughed when Stan revealed he kept a bobby pin under his fez for emergencies.  
  
His eyes widened as Stan spun the tale of nearly picking the lock and losing the pin, and he gasped audibly, "Oh no!"  
  
"Yup.  Tumbled right to the ground.  And of all people, Preston's kid, Pacifica, happened to be standing right there to see the whole thing.  She offered me a deal to get the pin back; said I had to say her family is the best."  
  
"Stanley, you didn't.  Not after how she treated Mabel at the party."  
  
"Hell no!" He bellowed, his hands slapping his knees, "I asked if she wanted it in writing and wrote 'You stink' with a pen stuck in my mouth!"  
  
Ford managed a laugh, "Excellent.  I'm proud of you, holding your ground like that.  But, I'm not surprised.  You've always been-"  
  
"A stubborn old fool?"  
  
"Stubborn.  Yes.  But that's not a bad thing.  I have your stubbornness to thank for you sticking around, after all."  
  
"Heh.  Yeah.  I guess.  Anyway, I'd say it was worth the extra tomato pelting."  
  
"Oh, Stanley..." he said with a sympathetic lilt.  
  
"Eh, it's alright.  Soos came by and kept me company for a bit then the kids showed up later and broke me out with some magical key they found during the day.  Mabel, heh, her and her imagination, I tell ya.  She had on this top hat and said it was 'cause she's a congressman now.  But, hey, she 'pardoned' me and the town didn't object so, whatever, I guess."  
  
"She sounds like quite a pistol, alright."  
  
"Sure is.  I think you two will get along well," Stan added, his tone showing nothing but absolute certainty that they'd meet someday.  
  
Ford's answer, however, was not so certain.  "I hope so."  
  
"Well, enough about me, how about you?  With all this time stuck alone like this, you got any new ideas for that novel of yours for me to write down?" he asked, digging in his coat pocket for a battered notepad with a dripping, black question mark on the cover and a  _What is the Mystery Shack?_  pen.  
  
"... Yes.  Actually."  
  
"Alright," Stan said, clicking the pen and holding it above an empty page, "ready whenever you are."  
  
Ford cleared his throat, thankful that the smolder of his cheeks had dulled to an awkward stiffness but annoyed at the headache setting in.  Even so, he breathed deeply and began, picking up at a seemingly random point in a story inspired by nearly being dragged into the portal all those years ago, by his own fears, and by imagination; the story of a man traveling between dimensions.  
  
"In his journey, he stumbled upon a world of two dimensional beings.  He found himself stuck in an uncomfortable position, his eyes above their dimensional plane but his mouth below, rendering him unable to explain his circumstances and barely able to perceive the edges of the startled shapes surrounding him.  Fearing his presence, the residents attacked.   Their razor sharp edges sliced into his flesh repeatedly, but he was trapped, utterly helpless, his pleas for mercy bellowing outside of their frame of existence until his vision darkened and he lost consciousness.  
  
He awoke seemingly moments later laying among plush pillows and soft blankets, his wounds cleaned and bandaged.  An unearthly woman towered above him, her seven stunning eyes filled with concern as they gazed down to him.  Though his experiences had left him on edge, something about her set his mind at ease.  Perhaps it was her posture, proper but not too stiff, the way her hands folded gently over her lap as she sat beside him, or the kindness in her voice as she welcomed him to her mountaintop shrine.  She introduced herself as an oracle and claimed he would be safe by her side.  His instincts screamed for him to get up and run, that no one could be trusted, yet, he remained a resident in the shrine as he recovered."  Ford yawned, his eyelid drooping as his words trailed off, "Eventually, he realized, the oracle had earned his trust...  
  
Stan looked up from his scrawled writing, leaning forward to the edge of his seat as he awaited the rapid beeps and panicked pleas of the next nightmare.  
  
Several minutes passed and nothing happened.    
  
He stood, his own heart picking up tempo in place of Ford's as he leaned over the bed.  "Gah!"  He jumped back as Ford's eye flew open, yellow glare piercing through.  His head and limbs thrashed against the restraints, blanket flapping over his body.  
  
Bill growled and huffed, "Guess I tired him out too much.  Human bodies have so little endurance.  Yeesh.  A bit of trauma and a night or two without sleep and they're useless."  
  
Stan gave a deep sigh, falling back into his chair.  His hands draped over his knees, barely keeping hold of the notepad and pen.  Embittered, he asked, "Don't you have anything better to do, Bill?"  
  
"Thanks you you two, no.  Not at the moment.  You really have no idea how boring it can get being immortal and stuck in only one dimension, do you?  But, I've got my eye on some new prospects.  Aw, don't think that means I'll neglect you two.  But for now, Sweet dreams!  Hope those restraints hold up.  Wouldn't want anything bad happening, now would you?"  
  
With that, Ford's eye dimmed, the lid slipping closed as he slept.  Stan breathed deeply, leaning back in his chair.  "Hope you get some rest, Ford," he whispered.  
  
In his own exhaustion, Stan fell asleep before his head hit the chair's padded back, the notebook resting on his chest and pen clattering to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wkdw Jlghrq nlg lv suhwwb fuhhsb, lvq'w kh? 
> 
> Don't worry, Ford isn't holding anything against Dr. Braum. If anything, she was a kind and comforting presence to him during the whole ordeal.
> 
> Personal note: Apparently I'm such an insomniac that I woke up under general anesthesia once. The incredibly vivid memories I have of it are partly what inspired this. Thing is, I didn't realize it was something that can profoundly affect your life until reading up more on it for research for this. I never even told anyone about it because I didn't realize it was something I should tell. So yeah, my doctors didn't even know about it. Reading up on it is already explaining a lot but I probably haven't even scratched the surface yet. I just never related anything to it before, possibly because the one effect I don't have is nightmares (about that in particular). (Also, sorry, but I don't want to go into detail at the moment because even that is an issue wrapped up in it that I haven't solved yet. It wasn't a serious procedure or surgery, though, so no worries. Anyway, I just wanted to mention where the inspiration came from and show that writing like this actually *is* therapeutic and can uncover real life issues.)


	12. Finding Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan awakens in Ford's recovery room and gains some comforting knowledge. Later, he speaks to Dr. Braum about a medication that could potentially help Ford get some restful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat of a more hopeful chapter this time...
> 
> Warnings: Discussion of surgery, eye trauma, surgical trauma (as usual, nothing graphic but warning just in case.)  
> (Also, Ford’s thoughts regarding his situation stem from his own depression and do not reflect reality.)
> 
> Look! There's [ more art! ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/172344602138/cthulhu-of-the-night-heres-some-more-art-for) by the wonderful [ cthulhu-of-the-night ](https://cthulhu-of-the-night.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, thanks to [ Energywitch ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13718667/comments/156529317) for the idea of prescribing a medication that could provide dreamless sleep. (And for ideas for things that they've tried over the years.)

"Huh?  Wuzzat?  No.  No refunds."  Stan sputtered, his head slumping down.  His fez tumbled to the floor as his elbow slipped off the padded armrest of a chair that was not his.  His muscles were stiff against its rigid back and his shoulders tense and sore.  He blinked in the dim light, taking a moment to register the beeps behind him, the breaths beside, and the odorous assault of antiseptics.  He remembered listening to Ford, writing out notes for him, then...  
  
He guessed, from the look of the notebook laying open on the floor, he must have fallen asleep.  
  
A jolt flashed through him, his heart skipping a beat as he scrambled into an upright position.  He scrunched up his coat sleeve and squinted at the gold watch Ford had convinced him to buy a decade ago if only to symbolically rub it into their father's face.  
  
_5 am.  Phew.  Plenty of time before the Shack opens..._   He thought.  _Except..._ He turned to the bed where his brother still slept.  His glasses lifted to his forehead as he massaged the sleep out of the corners of his eyes.  "I can't just leave you here like this," he muttered.  
  
"Stanley?"  Ford slurred, his eye barely open, wriggling his wrists in the restraints as if he didn't have the energy to buck against them.  "What's going on?"  
  
"Hey, it's alright, you fell asleep for a bit," Stan answered, his back and knees cracking as he stood.  He hunched forward, waiting for everything to settle before turning to lean over the bed rail.  "You're still in recovery."  
  
"Oh.  Right," he breathed, followed by a string of barely decipherable curses.  
  
"Ford?" Stan asked with a raised brow, "You alright?  Need me get you anything?"  
  
"Sorry, it's just..." he said with a downtrodden exhale, clenching and unfurling his tingling fingers, "It's still gone."  
  
Stan couldn't find words to reply.  He wanted to say things would be fine, wanted to tell him not to worry but, it would almost be an insult to do so.  He'd need time to grieve his loss and to adjust to everything it affected and implied.  "I'm sorry," He finally said, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder.  "I'm so sorry everything is so shitty right now.  I can only imagine what you must be feeling."      
  
"It was so," He said, squinting up at Stan, silhouetted in the lamplight, "It's  _still_  so...  vivid.  I could feel it all, Stanley," Ford rambled, his face paling with the churning of his stomach, "Not pain, thank all the gods in the multiverse, but pressure, poking, and prodding and then-"  
  
"Okay, okay.  I get it," Stan said, holding up his hands in surrender.  "I feel like I'm gonna barf as much as you look like you're going to."  
  
"I could see everything, hear every word but I couldn't move.  I couldn't speak.  I couldn't tell them!" He paused for a breath, closing his eye for a moment before continuing at a calmer pace, "But, even so, it wasn't...  Completely terrifying.  Dr. Braum was there.  Even without my glasses I could tell it was her.  I could see her hair.  It's unmistakable," He gave a single husky chuckle and added, "I kept thinking, 'I bet Mabel would squeal in delight if she saw this.'"  
  
"I bet," Stan added with a half-smile, leaning forward, his arms on the rail and chin resting on them.  
  
"And, I could hear her voice more clearly than in everyday life.  It was soft and kind... Reassuring, even.  She was explaining everything as if she knew I needed to hear it, as if she knew I needed to understand what was happening."  
  
"Wow.  She didn't tell me that part," Stan said, his brows raised in bewilderment.  
  
"And," Ford paused for a deep breath before continuing, "I knew he was there sometimes.  He tried to move my head, tried to move my limbs but...  He couldn't."  
  
"Interesting," Stan lifted himself to his elbows, intrigue furrowing his brows, "What was it the doc said about a para...  para...?"  
  
"Paralytic?  Yes.  In the anesthesia.  I suppose, if neurological-transmission is suppressed for me, it is for him, too.  Or at least, he may not know how to overcome that obstacle yet," Ford hypothesized, "Doesn't stop him from wreaking havoc in my mindscape, though," he added in a sarcastic huff.  
  
"But that means he didn't cause any physical problems, right?"  Stan said, turning to pick up his Fez and the notebook, thinking he'd jot down a note about it.  He knelt down, lifting the chair to reach the  _What is the Mystery Shack?_  pen.  
  
"Thankfully," Ford answered, awaiting his brother's reappearance at the bedside rail.  
  
Stan's hand grasped the edge, using it to lift himself back to his feet.  He adjusted the fez over his matted hair and turned to a blank page in the notebook.  After scribbling out Ford's hypothesis, he flipped back to the passage Ford had dictated the night before and reread the last few words, trying to remind himself what had happened before he'd fallen asleep.  
  
"Hey," he said, "Looks like you fell asleep mid-thought here in your novel notes.  Want to tell me the rest?"  
  
"Oh?  I don't really remember.  If it's not too much trouble, could you read back what we have so far?" Ford asked.  "Actually...  I'm sorry to bother but...  My mouth tastes like a sewer right now.  Can I-?"  
  
"Yeah!  Of course," Stan answered.   
  
He set the notebook on the chair and grabbed a styrofoam cup, complete with lid and straw, from the rolling table.  He filled it at the wash station and scooped a few handfuls of water into his own mouth, swishing and gargling to clear out his own sewage-flavored saliva.  Meanwhile, Ford found the button to lift the back of his bed into an almost upright position.  
  
After Ford thanked him, Stan eased himself back into the chair and read the short passage back to him.  
  
"Ah right," Ford said.  
  
"You remember that part?"  Stan asked, readying the pen above the paper's green lines.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Soooo," he prompted, "what's next?"  
  
"I have no idea," Ford said with an exasperated sigh.  
  
"Oh," Stan's tone mimicked his brother's.  
  
"I know this was going somewhere," Ford groused, his blanket crumpling between his clenched fists.  "Somewhere important...  but now I don't remember where."  
  
Stan wanted to reassure him that he'd think of it, that he'd remember at some crazy point in the middle of the night, but it was his experience that when Ford forgot something, if Stan, himself, didn't know enough about it to jostle the memory loose, it wasn't going to come back to him.  "Well, you'll figure out something," he finally offered, clicking the pen and tucking it in the breast pocket of his coat along with the notebook.  
  
Ford closed his eye for a moment, his head pressed back against his pillow.  He suddenly gasped, his head turning to Stan, eye peeling open as he blurted,  "What time is it?  Don't you need to go?"  
  
Stan breathed out, releasing the anxious knot Ford's outburst had tied in his chest.  "No," he answered.  "I don't.  I'll call Soos and have him cancel tours today."  
  
"What about Dipper and Mabel?"  
  
"They'll be fine with Wendy.  I’ll at least have her open the gift shop," Stan said, crossing his arms as if willing an end to the matter.  
  
"No, you should go, Stanley," Ford said, shaking his head, "I'll be alright now that I've gotten some decent rest."  
  
"No.  I'm not leaving you here alone, again."  
  
The two argued back and forth for nearly five minutes until Ford settled the matter with a point he loathed bringing up, "Can we afford it?"  
  
He hated those words.   _"We."_ He considered.   _What a joke.  Like I'm actually contributing anything...  But "you" sounds so...  Accusatory._   He hated it.  He hated that his existence was so expensive.  He hated that the most he could do was try to help Stan brainstorm ideas for the Shack through crayon drawings and finger paint, even if Stan claimed he appreciated it.  If only he _could_ finish that novel.  Or others.  If they were picked up by a publisher, maybe it would help at least a little.  Even though Stan had told him over and over that they're family and being able to be such was more than enough, Ford couldn't help feeling like he wanted to be...  Useful.   _Ironic.  It's the same damn feeling that got me into this mess to begin with._ He knew it.  And knowing it only made him feel worse.  
  
Stan paused.  He'd barely scraped together enough of their savings to pay off Rico and cover Dr. Braum's initial visit.  As it stood, she'd agreed to reduce the cost to self-pay rates and open a tab for them for what he couldn't cover in medications and surgery costs.  With a sighed succession of curses, he conceded.  
  
He stayed another hour, doing all he could to give Ford any shred of comfort then promised he'd be back again once the kids were asleep.  
  
****  
  
With a heart as heavy as his feet, Stan slipped out the door to Ford's private room.  He shuffled down the hall, the scent of fresh coffee perking him up.  It seemed early but he supposed not too early for a member or two of the staff to arrive.  A disheveled mop of rainbow hair caught his eye as he passed the nurses station and he paused, uncertain of what to do.  
  
Dr. Braum was hunched over the desk, her head resting on her arms and a light snore passing through her lips.  The coffee machine, one of those fancy single service ones, gurgled and dripped, startling her awake.  
  
"Oh!  Mr. Pines!  I wasn't sleeping, I swear," she sputtered, nearly knocking over the rolling chair as she jumped up from it, straightening her lab coat and patting her hair as if it would help the tangled mess.  
  
"Actually," Stan said with a shrug "I'm surprised you’re still here.  I thought you would have left when Ford and I fell asleep."  
  
"Pfft!  What do you think I am?  A monster?  I would never leave a patient without proper medical care," her cheerful professionalism melted into a perturbed grumble, "even if the rest of my staff was busy tonight."  She readjusted her smile and continued, "Someone had to check his vitals and make sure he got his antibiotics.  Glad you two slept through that," she said with a light laugh.  "The other surgeons will cover for me today so I can go home and get some sleep.  Besides, there's no way I'd leave anyone alone in here.  This business means everything to me."  She reached for the freshly filled coffee cup, held it out to Stan and offered, "coffee?"  
  
"Definitely.  Thanks," he took the cup, ignored the cream and sugar on the counter and rushed straight for the first scalding slurp.  "Yeah," he replied, "I get it.  The Mystery Shack is everything to us these days.  But, if this place is so important to you, isn't it risky to help people like Ford and I?"  He leaned against the desk, staring remorsefully at the steam preventing him from downing the entire cup of coffee.  "It can't be easy.  and It can't all be cases involving weird shit like us.  You must deal with some rough clients from people like Rico."  
  
"Well," she said, setting up the machine for a cup of coffee for herself, "I do get quite a few patients from the valley who wouldn't otherwise get help simply because of who and what they are.  But, yes, the majority of them are referred to me by people like Rico.  But, you know what?" She said, turning to Stan, "Most of those people never asked for the life they live.  They're just trying to get by in a world where no one else would offer the help they needed."  
  
"Yeah," Stan said with a snort, "Damn.  Yeah.  I get that."  
  
"Besides," Dr. Braum said with a shrug, "the money's good."  
  
"Heh, I like your style, doc," he chuckled, raising his cup to her as a salute.  "Well, thanks," he added, swirling his cup and staring into the inky darkness, "Ford told me how you handled things during his surgery.  Thanks for that.  Seems like it did a lot to help him."  Stan took a deep breath and spoke aloud something he'd rather have kept to himself, "It's been a long time since we've had someone to help."  
  
"That's because you're stubborn old men who think you can do everything for yourselves," she said, pointing a finger at him.  
  
"I suppose we are these days.  It's just...  hard to keep looking for help when nothing _has_ helped yet."  
  
"Well, you call me anytime you need anything, alright?" She said, turning at the gurgle and sputter of the coffee machine.  She lifted her freshly filled cup and returned to the rolling chair.    
  
"Thanks, doc," Stan said, raising his cup for another drink.  
  
"There's one more thing I wanted to talk to you about before I head out for the day," She added, setting her cup down and lifting Ford's file.  "Those nightmares your brother has...  I'm sorry for hesitating in prescribing anything for him but, given this," she explained, turning the file to face him and displaying his own handwritten account of medications they'd tried, to what degree they worked, and when they'd stopped.  "I thought," she continued, "it would be best to speak to you first, especially since he was being..."  
  
"Difficult?"  
  
"...Yes," she answered, flopping the file down and flipping through three pages of data, "This is a rather, um, detailed...  And long...  List of past medications.  I mean, thanks for the spreadsheet and all, it actually does help but...  Wow."  
  
"Yeah," Stan said with a sigh, reaching out for a creamer and three packages of sugar to add to his coffee.  "We went through a lot of different medications.  Some made things worse.  Some didn't work at all.  And, when we were lucky, they worked but stopped after about a year or so."  
  
"How did you even get all of these?"  She asked, raising her cup for a drink.  
  
"If I told you, you'd spit coffee all over me," Stan answered.  
  
She swallowed hard and answered, "Alrighty then, I won't pry.  Anyway, thing is," she continued, pointing to characters that weren't of any earthly language, "I don't recognize some of these."  
  
"Yeeeeaaaah...." Stan said, taking a long sip of coffee before confessing, "Those are potions."  
  
"Should I ask?"  She said with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Probably not."  
  
"Right then," she quipped, flipping the folder closed with a smack of her hand on its cover.    
  
"Listen," Stan said, setting his empty cup on the desk. "Ford described it to me once in a way that made a lot of sense.  He said that Bill being in his head is like having an angry toddler who's a fast learner living there.  He makes a mess of things and rearranges them and even breaks things.  But, Ford can pick things up and put them back where they belong to some extent.  When things are broken, though, he needs glue to fix them, like when I can help him remember things by showing him photos and stuff.  When it comes to nightmares, Bill is basically taking out old memories and fears and leaving them all over the floor like Blego Blocks waiting for you to step on them.  When he takes certain medications, it's like being able to put those things on a shelf the toddler can't reach or in a cabinet with a lock.  But, eventually Bill learns how to climb the cabinet or pick the lock and the pills stop working."  
  
"I see.  What about the local Shaman?" Dr. Braum suggested, "Perhaps a dreamcatcher?"  
  
"I have one that sometimes works since my nightmares aren't 'cause of having a demon in my head."  Stan explained, "Ford's never did work, though.  Apparently Bill once possessed a Shaman and knows all of those secrets already."  
  
"Do you think he'd be willing to try a medication that's fairly new to the market?" Dr. Braum asked, "even if it might only provide short-term relief?"  
  
"That's entirely up to him," Stan said with a shrug, "if he wants it, I'll pony up for it.  Somehow."  
  
"I'll speak to him about it before I leave, then," she said before downing the rest of her coffee.  
  
"Thanks.  Get home and crash soon, lady.  You look like Ford used to when he got hyper-focused on a science project."  
  
"Yeah, like you look any better after sleeping in a chair all night."  
  
"Eh," he said with a shrug, "sleep is sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jrrg oxfn jhwwlqj vrph idvw fdvk, Ihc.


	13. I Miss Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For once, Ford has a dream that isn't a nightmare. Bill falls suspiciously but thankfully silent. Stan gives Ford some news that brings back shreds of memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's [ a list of the end codes translated ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e) if anyone wants to see. I'll update it as needed but keep the newer codes secret for a while after posting them.
> 
> Thanks again to everyone for your comments and input!
> 
> Warnings: Nothing much to speak of this time other than some good old Stangst with a dash of fluff.

The afternoon sun shone bright across patches of grass and dirt as two sets of feet pelted through the clearing surrounding the Mystery Shack.  A third set followed along with a gritty laugh and the splash of water balloons against colorful T-shirts.  "Oh.  Oh no!" Stan said and turned tail to run as the kids chased him with fresh handfuls of yellow and pink balloons.  They disappeared around the gift shop and reappeared from behind a tree on the opposite side of the back porch, spotted in the bright specks of sunlight shimmering through the rustle of pine needles above.  
  
Ford watched from the porch and laughed as his brother dove behind a barrel filled with blue and red water balloons.  Stan dug both hands in and rapid-fired them at the kids.  
  
Through laughter, Dipper complained, "No fair!"  
  
Mabel ducked behind a bush beside the porch.  She looked up to him and said, "Grunkle Ford, tell Grunkle Stan that's cheating!"  
  
"Hey," Stan said, "All's fair in war or whatever!" and chucked a water balloon at Ford's head.  
  
His eyes widened and he moved to dodge but it was too late.  The balloon hit him square in the cheek and...  He didn't feel a thing.  
  
****  
  
He awoke, not with a start but with a smile.  
  
When only one eye would open, his heart sank.  He squinted at the shadows on the ceiling of the recovery room, nausea stirring in his stomach as he shifted his wrists.  Why did he bother trying?  He already knew the answer.  Of course they were still bound to the bed's sidebars.  Of course he was still in recovery and his eye was still gone, and worst of all, he was alone.  
  
It was his own fault.  He'd told his brother to leave.  He'd callously nudged at Stan's deepest insecurity and, honestly, one of his own, to make him leave, fully believing that it was the actual reason, except...  
  
_It was never about the money,_  he realized.  
  
He stared at up blankly, too weary to bother stopping the tear that streaked down the side of his face.    
  
"I'm sorry, Stan."  
  
"Geez.  You humans are weird," Bill's voice echoed through his mind.  Ford clenched his eye shut as if to close out the taunts.  Even so, tears flowed past and a sob wrung his chest.  "I didn't even do anything and you wake up and start bawling like a kid with a skinned knee.  Sheesh, it was just a dream.  Oh right.  Guess It's my fault that it's  _just_  a dream.  Oopsie!  Hope your brother's having fun with them today.  That's what you wanted, right?"  
  
****  
  
Bill was seemingly silent as Ford recovered, leaving the elder twins with decades worth of fear and misery fueling their unrelenting apprehension.  Stan wasn't sure if Bill chose not to bother with them or if the anesthesia was to thank for Stanford's uneventful trip back to the shack.  Dr. Braum and her assistant had monitored his vitals with compact, portable machines to assure his safety during the drive and finally disconnected the leads once he was safely resting in a nest of plush pillows behind familiar bars.  
  
At 2 am, they'd taken advantage of the noises from the construction crew setting up the Shack's fair, using them as cover while moving him into the house and down the stairs.  Stan had led them back up and out, thanking them again for their help and assuring them he'd pay up as soon as he could.  For once, he meant it, and not just because they'd have every right to rat him out to the authorities, or worse, Rico, if he didn't.  
  
He slept on an air mattress in the basement for the remainder of the night.  He'd slept there on a few occasions, when Ford needed the company, but with the kids in the house, he'd taken to sleeping in his own bed every night.  It was too risky not to.  If Dipper or Mabel decided to check up on him, or to use his dentures as a fishing lure again, and found him missing, he'd have to spin more lies, remember more garbage.  But tonight, he didn't care.  He could probably say he was outside checking up on progress with the fair equipment if anyone asked and it wouldn't be unbelievable.  Either way, he needed to be there when Ford reawakened.  
  
And he was.  Even in his exhausted state, he only managed about four hours of sleep before he sat up, his bottom nearly sinking to the floor through the mattress.  A rustling of pillows caught his attention and he slipped on his glasses in time to see Ford sit up as well.  He yawned and stretched, flexing his hands and wrists, visibly relieved to be free of the medical restraints.  His hand reached up to the gauze patch taped over his eye and Stan held his breath, hoping Bill wouldn't take control and tear it off.  He let out a relieved puff when Ford's fingers simply traced the gauze and lowered back to the pillows in his lap.  
  
Ford's head tipped down as his hands trailed across the familiar cotton, jersey, and microfiber fabrics.  "I never thought," he mumbled, "I'd be happy to be back here."  He lifted his head, seeing only a blur of his brother without his glasses.  In a clearer voice he added, "But I am.  Even though he can still get to me here, it feels..."  His voice trailed off with no intention of finishing the thought he never meant to vocalize in the first place.  
  
"Yeah..." Stan filled in the silence.  Ford didn't need to say it.  After all they'd experienced, the basement was safe and comfortable in its familiarity and privacy, hidden from the view of outsiders, tucked away from judgement and pity.  
  
"You made it comfortable here," Ford complimented in hopes of detouring the subject at least a little.  He wasn't lying.  The warm light, the photos plastering the wall, the plants in the corner, the bookshelves filled with science journals and novels, the television, even the makeshift bathroom made the room feel like a home, despite the circumstances.  
  
"It ain't the Ritz but...  I tried," Stan said, scooping up Ford's glasses from the floor and offering them to him through the bars.  
  
"You succeeded," he affirmed, reaching for his glasses.  He sat back and stretched their strap over his head, finally taking note of his shorter hair.  After adjusting his glasses around his ears and comfortably over his eye patch, he ruffled the nearly buzzed strands at the nape of his neck and the longer curls crowning his head.  
  
"I got a mirror here, if you want to see," Stan suggested, lifting a square mirror framed in plastic that was about a foot tall by eight inches wide.  Ford knelt closer to the bars and looked through, moving his head from side to side to get as much of a view as he could.  Maybe he didn't look that much different than Stan after all.  Sure they each had their scars, but for the first time in a few years, he felt like he could see the resemblance again.  The shave and hair cut definitely helped.  His new style was almost identical to the one he'd kept in his youth but, perhaps a little longer on top.  It turned out that his nearly white streaks formed a semi-circular band around the back of his head from ear to ear.  His hands patted his cleanly shaven chin, stopping to trace one of the scars his beard had kept hidden.  
  
"Better?" Stan asked, uncertainty edging his voice.  
  
"Better," Ford confirmed.  Even if his scars were more visible this way, even if it felt like a child who'd lost his security blanket, it was nice to be well-groomed again.  He'd forgotten how much he'd once preferred his sideburns trimmed neatly and his hair off of his neck.  
  
"Hey, Stan..." he said, shifting to the side to look at his brother around the mirror and bars.    
  
Stan lowered the mirror and answered, "Yeah?"  
  
Ford wanted to say he was sorry.  Sorry for being difficult while he was in recovery, sorry for snapping at him, sorry for acting like Stan owed him his presence there on that first day.  He wanted to speak up and tell him he was sorry for sending him away again after that, sorry for being so fickle.  Even more, he wanted to tell him that he never meant to mention money, that he had no right, but, the words failed him.  He didn't even know where to begin.  Instead, he simply said "...Thank you."  
  
****  
  
Ford sat near the bars of his cell, drooping forward in the TV's flicker as he nodded off every so often.  Of all times, why did his new prescription have to kick in now?   _Just a few more minutes.  Let me get through the rest of this episode.  Damn commercials, get on with it!_ Ducktective was on the verge of solving the case and someone knew it.  A creepy stranger had been following him and had lurked up behind him with a knife raised, ready to strike...  
  
And it had cut to commercial.  
  
He shook his head, reaching into his jelly bean bag to find nothing but dust in its bottom.  "Aw, that was the last bag," he grumbled, crumpling it between twelve fingers.  He raised his arm to toss it through the bars but paused, lowering it to his lap and squeezing it between his palms as the screen flashed back to Ducktective waddling through the parking garage, lights flickering overhead.  Ford leaned forward, his hands idly holding the crumpled bag as the knife raised above the duck's head.  
  
"No no no no," he chanted, flinching to look away but unable to tear his eye from the screen as the knife plunged down...  
  
Into a cake.  
  
"Yes!"  Ford cheered, the bag flying from his hands.  "They remembered."  
  
The screen flashed bright and right in the middle of the garage was a table with a colorful cake on it.  The entire cast, even the deputy from season one shouted, "Happy Anniversary!"  
  
A sloppy smile spread across his face as he watched the animated cast celebrate Ductective's tenth anniversary as a detective, completely ignoring the implications of a real duck's lifespan.  He didn't even mind that the cliffhanger of "The Case of Miss. Felicity's Missing Feline" lingered.  
  
The basement door edged open and Stan gave a light knock, startling him.   
  
"Hey," Stan said, "sounds like you're watching something exciting."  
  
"TV, off," Ford commanded.  He looked toward the door, hoping his cheeks weren't burning too red.  Luckily, Stan backed into the room with the typical covered tray in his hands.  His bottom pressed against the door, his boxers twisting uncomfortably around his hips before he stepped away, letting the door click shut behind him.  
  
"Hey, you don't have to turn it off just 'cause I'm here," he said, turning to Ford who seemed suddenly fascinated by the hem of his sweater.    
  
"Oh uh, it's fine.  It was just an old movie I used to enjoy," Ford scrambled for an explanation, arranging the pillows around him as an excuse to continue looking down.  Finally, he glanced up, as if to prove he wasn't at all flustered.  
  
"Sure, sure," Stan said, bending over to set the tray down.  "You know, the missing cat ended up-"  
  
"No spoilers!" Ford shouted, holding his hands up in surrender.  
  
"Ha ha!" Stan ended his laugh with a grunt as his attempt to ease down onto the floor pillow ended in the thud of him flopping into it.  "I knew it.  The kids and I missed most of the marathon today 'cause of the fair winding down but we caught a few episodes before they went up to bed.  Sounded to me like that was the fiftieth episode special, huh?"  
  
"It was..."  
  
"It only gets better from there!  Turn it back on," Stan said, swiveling around to at least partly face the TV.  
  
"TV on," Ford commanded, his voice squeaking sheepishly.  
  
"I felt the same way you did about this show until the kids made me watch it with 'em.  But, even though it's ridiculous, it's good, isn't it?" Stan spoke over a commercial whose catchy song invited viewers to "come along" and "feel the fizz" of their brightly colored colas.  
  
"Indeed.  The humor offsets the drama perfectly and, despite the cartoonish fantasy elements, it makes you care about the characters."  
  
"Yeah, that," Stan chuckled.  He turned back to Ford and the covered tray sitting between them.  "Hey, I brought some food from the fair if you want some."  He uncovered the tray to reveal a question mark shaped corn dog placed on a plate beside the meat cut from a turkey leg and assorted paper cups of condiments.  On a separate plate was a giant pretzel with extra salt and a cup of beer-infused cheese.  He'd even included cotton candy stuffed into a plastic bag, a cone of soft-serve ice cream, slightly melted and tipped upside down into a bowl, and a cup of semi-frozen lemonade.  
  
"That's an impressive spread," Ford said, reaching out for the bowl of ice cream that was quickly becoming soup.  He broke off pieces of the cone, dipping them into the vanilla and chocolate swirls.  "So," he asked between bites, "How did the fair go?"  
  
"I'd say it was more than a success.  Well, at least for Mabel and I.  I'm not sure exactly what happened but Dipper seemed upset about something.  Kid won't tell me what, though."  
  
"Reminds me a bit of you at his age," Ford said, cleaning the last drop of ice cream from the bowl with his finger.  
  
"Yeah, maybe a little more than I thought," he muttered, turning back to the TV as the Ducktective theme song played. "Oh, show's back."  
  
Stan watched with the odd outburst of laughter while Ford picked pieces off of the corn dog, dunked them in ketchup and mustard, and munched on them without looking away from the screen.  
  
When it cut to commercial again, Ford resumed their conversation, "So, how did your dunking game go?"  
  
"Better than I thought it would," Stan answered, stealing a pinch of cotton candy, "A few insults and everyone was coughing up cash to try to dunk me.  I haven't done all the math yet but looks like there's a..."  
  
"Oh Stanley..."  
  
"FAIR amount of profit."  
  
Ford stuffed a bite of cheese-dunked pretzel into his mouth to stifle his laughter.  He swallowed hard, cleared his throat and asked, "So what about Mabel?  You said she had a good day."  
  
"She did.  She won a pig at the _guess the weight_ booth.  Named it Waddles."  
  
Ford coughed, nearly spitting bits of pretzel through the bars.  "A pig?  And she's keeping it?"  
  
"Yeah-"  
  
"In the house?!"  
  
"Uh...  yeah?" Stan said with a shrug, "Guess I should have asked but she was so happy and I didn't think it would be a problem.  I mean, you seemed alright with me keeping Gompers."  
  
"I...  I remember saying something to someone about this."  Ford shook his head, clenching his eye closed.  He searched his mind as if reaching for a book on the top shelf only to find half of its pages missing and the other half illegible.  "If I ever see a pig in this house I-"  He squeezed his eyelid tighter, trying to remember what he'd said.  "I'm sending you...  Him?  Back south."  
  
"South?  Him?  Who?"  
  
"I-  I don't know!  It feels like it's right there but I can't see it.  It was important.  Whoever it was...  I miss him," his voice cut out airily as he leaned forward, cupping his head in his hands, the ache in his heart nearly choking him and he didn't know why.  
  
"Can you remember anything else?" Stan asked, his voice gentle, not demanding or interrogating, "Something he wore?  How you knew him? Anything you did together?"  
  
"No...  Nothing other than that he was there for me when I needed a friend.  And...  I think we fought and I hurt him.  Badly.  Possibly...  Irreparably."  
  
"So, we know it's a memory Bill messed with, then," Stan sighed, ignoring that the commercial break had ended.  "Do you think he's making you believe you did something to hurt him?"  
  
"I don't know.  I DON'T KNOW!"  He clutched the sides of his head, doubling over.  "I hate this..." he whimpered, rocking back and forth, "I want to remember.  I feel horrible that I can't remember!"  
  
"Hey, hey, it's alright.  It's alright," Stan reached through the bars, resting his hand on his brother's shaking shoulder.  
  
Ford wanted to lean closer, craved the comfort of human contact with an ache that knotted his breath within his chest, but he backed away instead, clutching a bed pillow against himself, practically burying his face into it.  
  
Stan sighed, retracting his hand.  "Even when that monster hasn't shown himself for days, he still manages to make us miserable," he muttered.  
  
"Mmm," Ford mumbled, his eye staring up at the TV, not even registering the colorful characters on the screen.    
  
"I mean," Stan spoke up, "He hasn't actually been around since we got back, has he?"  
  
"No," Ford answered, his voice muffled by the pillow.  "Not at all," he continued, lowering the pillow and easing his grip on it.  "Not that I mind but, between this and the pause before our birthday...  I wonder what he's up to."  
  
"He keeps saying things about having his eye on some new pawns," Stan pointed out, his eyes darting to the ground as he considered all that could imply.  
  
"It worries me.  Who are they?"  Ford wondered aloud, his fingers digging into the pillow as he rested his chin on it.  
  
"Is he bluffing?"  Stan added, picking at the cotton candy sticking out of its bag.  
  
"It's possible.  It could be a new manipulation tactic.  But we can't risk assuming it is."  
  
"I'll keep a lookout for anything um...  weirder than usual," Stan promised.  
  
The two stared blankly at the TV, not even registering the events of the show as it played before their eyes.  Their minds wandered, going over the past and worrying over the future, spiraling around too few clues to piece together.  Finally, Ford broke the silence with a sheepish question, "A pig, huh?"  
  
"Yeah.  He's cleaner than I figured he would be," he said with a shrug, somewhat glad to change the subject, even if his mind lingered on more disturbing matters.  "She gave me some photos of them together.  Oh!  and I got those ones from the party developed, want to see?" he added, digging in his pocket for the photos.  
  
"Of course!" Ford leaned forward, equally relieved for the distraction.  
  
Ford looked over the photos, commenting on the party decorations, on how cute Mabel looked in her party fashion, and on how Dipper somehow appeared to be somewhere in the background of every image.  When Stan showed him the photos of Mabel with waddles, he smiled and said, "She looks so happy."  
  
"Does that mean?"  
  
"Yes," Ford conceded, "It's alright with me if she wants to keep him in the house."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grq'w iuhw, Irugvb. Kh grhvq'w uhphpehu brx hlwkhu.
> 
> First one to get the "Fizz" commercial reference in the comments gets their choice of a set of Pines Fluff prints ( [ 1 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/147272292222/skillfulstudio-and-done-dipper-and-the)[ 2 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/145885445172/skillfulstudio-ok-so-ive-drawn-dipper-and-ford) [ 3 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/145885482052/skillfulstudio-and-part-four-to-the-set-mabel) [ 4 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/147210945252/skillfulstudio-mabel-and-the-adorable-nerd) ) or a set of Ford prints ( [ 1 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/148107631022/skillfulstudio-maybe-thats-why-ford-kept-the) [ 2 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/145884935007/skillfulstudio-space-outlaw-ford-i-played-with) [ 3 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/145884386692/skillfulstudio-another-panel-of-dismantling) [ 4 ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/145883933902/skillfulstudio-as-a-person-who-cant-tell-the) ) mailed to them as a consolation prize for now having that song looping hopelessly in their head.
> 
> Edit: We have a winner!  
> [ ChromaticDreams ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromaticDreams/pseuds/ChromaticDreams) got it!


	14. The Cure for a Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan's having a bad day thanks to Gideon's antics but it's not going to stop him from bringing a couple of sandwiches downstairs to share with his brother. Ford apologizes for some things, Stan has a revelation, and Ford unwittingly cures Stan's bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another lighter chapter with a little fluff/comfort. Also, Ford secretly loves the southern accent and doesn't want to admit it. ;)
> 
> Warnings: Nothing really. Belching, I guess? And heavier cursing than usual but mostly in a satisfying and triumphant way.
> 
> And woo! [ Here's some chillingly wonderful art ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/172561892308/cthulhu-of-the-night-rum-and-shattered-dreams) from [ cthulhu-of-the-night! ](https://cthulhu-of-the-night.tumblr.com/)
> 
> As mentioned on [ tumblr, ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/172668642858/writing-update-sorry-there-was-no-mid-week-update) there's some stuff coming up that's more intense than I imagined it would be. Still nothing that would change any ratings or content warnings on this but definitely more action and such than I thought would show up yet. But, also as mentioned, I wasn't sure if it would be broken into multiple parts... And it was so this is kind of an in between bit, something to get us from point A to point B and fill in a few blanks and details along the way. Hoping to have the next part posted either tomorrow or Monday since it's mostly drafted already.

The Mystery Shack was silent aside from the creak of old boards under Stan's slippers and the scrape of a knife against toast.  A couple of turkey sandwiches wasn't much of a meal but, at this point, Stan figured he'd probably wind up burning down the house if he touched the stove.  He'd already burned the first batch of toast and had the mustard squirt nothing but juice onto a piece from the second batch.  When he'd reached for a tomato, he'd found the last one had turned soggy and was dripping through the wire basket onto the counter.  
  
He snatched a bag of sliced turkey and package of cheese from the fridge, slamming the door behind him.  The cheese package zipped open with a tug of a tab and he pulled out slices covered in green and black.  "UGH!" he fumed, his fingers instinctively flinging the pieces away and onto the floor.  Upon examination, the package’s plastic had been torn open on the backside.  "Figures," he grunted.  With a pair of tongs pulled from the pile of dishes soaking in the sink, he picked up the moldy slices and dropped them into the trash.  To compensate for the lack of ingredients, he piled the whole pound of turkey onto two sandwiches, crumpled the bag and threw it at the trash can only to have it bounce back out as if it felt the same way about the cheese as he did.  "Fine.  Stay there," he spat.  
  
With a dinner tray set up for Ford and himself to share, and two tote bags filled with snacks hanging from his shoulders he headed down to the basement.  "Don't you dare," he grumbled to the elevator as it creaked and moaned, threatening to stall.  He puffed a sigh of relief when it obeyed and clunked into place on the basement level.  His eyes squinted in the blue dimness of the former control room as the door rambled closed behind him.  Beyond the wooden wall and door, he could hear his brother repeating "Channel up" over and over in a monotonous tone.  He sighed and stepped forward...  Right into a panel from a supercomputer that had apparently decided that leaning against the wall wasn't good enough for it and sprawling across the floor was more comfortable.  
  
"Ah!  Son of a bitch!" Stan yelped, a string of curses following.  His toe throbbed and he couldn't even bend down to see if it was bleeding through his slipper thanks to the tray he'd nearly dumped onto the floor and the bags bulging under his arms.  He hobbled to the door and let himself in, his curses trailing off as warm light and the smell of rosemary and mint washed over him.  
  
Ford looked up to him from what appeared to be a partly built pillow fort and asked, "Bad day?"  
  
"That ain't the half of it," he snipped, setting the tray down on the storage chest and kicking off his slipper to check his toe.  Thankfully, it wasn't bleeding but he wouldn't be surprised if bruises showed up under multiple toenails later.  
  
"TV off," Ford commanded.  He shifted among the nest of pillows to face his brother and pried, " should I ask?"  
  
"Actually, yeah," Stan huffed, plopping the tote bags on the floor.  "You mind if I vent a bit?" he said, toeing at the matted faux fur of his slipper until it slid partially back on.  
  
Ford shrugged, about to make a joke about how he was too busy but bit it back as Stan tried to step the rest of the way into his slipper and tripped instead.  "Uh...  Go for it," he said, gritting his teeth in sympathy as his brother snarled and swore.  
  
Stan bent down and picked up his slipper, squeezing and twisting it between both hands as he explained, "It's that Gideon kid!"  
  
"Oh.  That."  
  
"Yeah.  That.  He tried to steal the shack again today.  He thought I'd fall for some sweepstakes thing and sign over the deed," he rambled, throwing his slipper at the door with a pathetic pelting sound.  
  
"Pfft..."  Ford's laugh started as a sputter and escalated to a howl.  
  
"What?  What's so funny?" he asked, hands on his hips, voice grating over his throat in annoyance.  
  
"The fact that a, what is he, nine?  Ten?  Year old kid thought he could out-con a man who's been at it for six times as long."  
  
"Well, I'm glad it's so hilarious to you," Stan said, reaching for his mangled slipper.  He straightened the sole, more as a fidgeting activity than a restorative one as his worries spilled out, "I mean, yeah, I saw through it this time but am I always going to be able to?"  
  
"Don't doubt yourself," Ford said, unsure if the attempt to boost confidence was aimed at Stan, himself, or both of them.  
  
"You know what I mean," he said, propping his hand against the door to steady himself while he lifted his foot to replace his slipper properly.  
  
"Yeah.  I do," Ford replied with a grim inflection, one hand rubbing at the intertwined cable knit of his sweater sleeve.  "Guess that's why I can only laugh at this point."  
  
"Well, anyway, that idiot kid ruined my mirror maze," he continued, testing his footing against the now lumpy sole of his slipper.  "Broke every one of 'em then started laughing 'til he fell over for some reason.  Still can't figure out why.  I ended up having to roll him back outside."  
  
"Aw, not the mirror maze.  You and Soos just got it all set up."  
  
"Yeah!  So much for the money that would have brought in."  Stan ranted about how he'd acquired all of those mirrors, something about thrift stores and dumpsters and hard work that likely meant "theft" but Ford couldn't make out much of it through the guilt that seemed to erode his heart like acid.  His head tipped down, eye closed and hands clenched over his folded legs until the second call of his name broke through the fog.  
  
"Ford?!  Are you even listening to me?"  
  
"Stanley, I'm sorry!" he blurted, eye clenched closed, shoulders drawn up to his ears.  
  
Stan blinked, tense posture sagging as he approached the bars between them.  "Sorry?  What for?" he asked.  
  
"For bringing up money at the surgery center," he answered, turning his head away.  "I must have sounded just like...  Dad."  
  
"Huh," Stan hummed as if trying to fill out a quiz in his mind.  His arms draped over the horizontal bar and he gave a dry laugh.  "Leave it to you to be so oversensitive that you're oversensitive for other people, ya nerd."  
  
"What?"  Ford asked, finally turning to look at him, bewildered.  
  
"I didn't take it that way," Stan said with a shrug.  "Maybe that means I'm gettin' over all that bullshit or something but I took it as 'we're out of money, I should go make us more of it.'" Stan paused as the revelation hit him, washing over him as he spoke slow words that sped into an excited frenzy, "Because that's a thing I can do now...  Because, ha!  Fuck you, pops.  Fuck you!  I-," he looked to Ford who blinked at him, resembling a confused owl with one giant eye.  He corrected, more for his own sake than Ford's, "We.  We own a business that's actually successful enough that it can generate that kind of cash.  Fuck you, old man!  I hope you're rolling in your grave knowing how much this place can make us and that you're not getting a dime of it!"  
  
Ford smiled, his shoulders lowering.  "Yes," he said with an airy laugh, "I hope so, too."   _But I'm sure if any rolling is happening, it's equally because of how his precious money-maker son ended up..._   His thoughts trailed off.  This was Stan's moment, a sorely needed moment of triumph.  Not his moment to feel sorry for himself.  "Fuck him," he whispered instead.  
  
"Ford?  You okay?"  
  
"Yeah," he said, steeling himself and looking up to his brother, "I'm just sorry I was so difficult at the surgery center."  
  
"Pfft," Stan waved it off, "Geez, Ford.  You lost an eye.  You lost your damn eye and handled it better than I would have," he breathed, easing his intensity before continuing, "It's alright.  I've said it before and I mean it.  I get it.  Okay?"  
  
"Mmm," he answered with a nod.  
  
"Well, now that that's all cleared up, let's eat," Stan said, backing away from the bars.  He returned with the tray in hand and eased himself down onto the floor pillow.  Ford shifted forward, pushing pillows aside to edge closer to the padded bars while Stan uncovered the tray.  "How are the kids?" he asked, reaching out for half of his sandwich.  "Is Dipper feeling any better after that fight with Robbie?"  
  
"Yeah, he's on the mend," Stan said, lifting a sandwich half shaped like a wedge and waging it as if accenting his hand gestures, "I'm still not sure how that lanky kid made such a mess out of him.  I figure he had some kind of, I don't know, body builder Karate master do the fighting for him.  But, Dipper insists it wasn't anything like that.  I gotta say, though, I'm pretty proud of him for actually tryin' to stand up to a kid who's older and bigger than him, even if he did get demolished.  That took a lot of guts."  
  
Ford worked through his first bite, the motion resembling Gompers when he chewed on a wad of grass, and asked, "What about his crush?"  
  
"Eh," Stan said, words garbled by a mouthful, "he still hasn't actually told me about it but it's pretty obvious.  Hope he's not taking things too hard.  I mean, honestly, I know Wendy ain't gonna go for a kid younger than her but I think I hate the idea of her being with that Robbie guy as much as Dipper does.  Seems like a real creeper, ya know?"  
  
Ford chugged from his soda cup and swallowed hard.  "Like the guys you used to beat up because they messed with Carla?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, like them," Stan answered, following Ford's lead and downing at least half his drink then letting out a belch that smelled like a deli doused in cola.  
  
Ford waved his hand in a joking gesture, as if trying to disperse the smell.  Too bad he couldn't control the timing of his own belches.  With their unpredictable nature, he usually wound up suppressing them rather than trying to compete with anyone.  With no ammo to return the bodily function, he instead asked, "What about Mabel?"  How has she been?"  
  
"She's good.  Absolutely loves that pig of hers.  I don't really get it," he said with a shrug, "but if it makes her happy, then eh, whatever."  
  
"I'm glad she's happy."  
  
"You sure you don't mind that she's keeping Waddles in the house after what you said the other day?" Stan asked, pointing an untouched corner of his sandwich wedge at Ford.  
  
Ford paused mid-bite and lowered his sandwich to answer, "I suppose I don't mind.  Why?  What did I say?"  
  
Stan's chewing stalled, his eyes wide and body frozen.  They'd thought Bill had been keeping his distance, but Ford may as well have had the words "Bill was here" written on his forehead rather than scrawled in faded scars across his arm.  "Um..." he started, wondering if he should drag the apparently painful memory back up.  But, if Bill wanted it gone, then no matter how painful it was, he needed to try to help Ford get it back.  "That thing," he explained, "about how you told someone that you'd send him back south if you ever saw a pig in the house?"  
  
"Oh.  Oh!  Yes.  I remember!  I..."  he paused.  Shreds of the memory fluttered through his mind as if caught up in a breeze, mostly out of reach but he clambered for what he could.  His heart broke all over again, and he _still_ didn't know exactly why.  He bowed his head and muttered, "I must have really hurt whoever that was.  And have probably continued to do so by never remembering enough to reach out to him.  But...  It seems it's been thirty years and he's never reached out to me, either," his eye widened as he looked up to Stan, panic edging his words, "I hope nothing bad happened to him."  
  
"Me too," Stan agreed, less because of actually caring about this mystery friend and more because, if he was still around somewhere, maybe he could help them.  "But, he continued, trying to give his brother any shred of hope, "There could be lots of reasons friends lose touch, though.  Even just plain being busy.  It could even be 'cause he thinks he hurt you."  
  
Ford chomped off another bite of his sandwich and pondered aloud, "South..."  He chewed and smacked over toast and turkey as he sorted through the scraps of memory, then swallowed and repeated, "South.  South.  Southern...  He had an accent!  A southern accent.  I'm not sure if that's what south meant but I remember a drawl and words that drove me crazy like y'all'd've.  Ugh, that feels terrible on my tongue.  What an abomination to the English language."  
  
"So, some guy with a southern accent who was like...  your best friend or something?"  
  
"I wish I could remember him," he groaned, massaging his forehead as if it might help.  "I can almost see his-" Ford's eye closed as he struggled to search his own mind, an image almost surfacing.  
  
His eye opened, glowing yellow.  "Ha ha," Bill laughed, "Nothing to see here.  Oh, sandwiches," he added as if he hadn't just set fire to the tapestry of memories they were so meticulously trying to stitch back together.  He took a bite, contorting Ford's brows as he gnawed.  "Bleh," he bleated and stuck out ford's tongue, coated in partly chewed mush.  "Needs gravy or something," he griped, "It's so dry it's stuck to the roof of Fordsy's mouth.  I'm outta here."  
  
Stan blinked, staring at Ford.  
  
Ford swallowed hard and said, "Your sandwiches are fine, Stanley," before taking another bite.  Even if it wasn't true, anything to fill his stomach's grumbling void was fine by him at the moment.  
  
"Liar," Stan snorted, his tongue trying to dislodge bits of turkey from the roof of his own mouth.  "'S, okay, though.  Par for the course for today.  Guess I'm glad my pseudo-cooking is so bad it drove him away, though," he said with a shrug.  
  
"Well," Ford's words muffled through his mouthful, "They're normally good anyway."  
  
"I guess.  But uh, speaking of food, I brought a bunch of fresh snack stuff for you," Stan said, nodding toward the tote bags emblazoned with Jack-o'-mellons and slumping against the door.  
  
"Oh that's right!  Tomorrow is Summerween, isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah.  I wanted to make sure you have lots of stuff here in case it gets to be too late before I can get down here tomorrow night," Stan explained, "I mean, I'll still bring something for breakfast but it might be earlier than usual."  
  
"That's fine."  
  
"And you're sure you're okay with-"  
  
"Of course!  I know how much you enjoy scaring the trick-or-treaters.  Have fun with it," Ford encouraged, honestly happy for his brother.  He honestly didn't enjoy showmanship as much his brother did, though, he did wish he could dress up, even if he'd been too preoccupied to do so in the days when he was free and able.  Staying aboard that train of thought, he asked, "What's your costume this time?"  
  
"Eh, recycling the vampire one again," Stan said, drowning a bite of his sandwich in soda.  
  
"Classic.  Any good scare tactics?"  Ford asked, pushing the last bite of his half sandwich into his mouth.  
  
"Yeah, I got a few ideas," Stan answered, rubbing a hand across the overgrown stubble on his chin.  "I'll set up your security monitor so it gets the feed from the back porch if you want to watch the master of fright at work."  
  
"That sounds good," he said and gulped half of what remained of his soda.  He opened his mouth to say thanks but the word drew out into a wall-shaking belch.  
  
Stan sputtered and laughed.  "Good one, Poindexter.  Glad to hear you still got it in you without having a most of a six pack in you!"  
  
"Pardon me," he squeaked, cheeks reddened as he wiped his mouth.  
  
Stan's laughter surged again.  He had to heave in a few breaths before finding enough of a pause to answer, "I will pardon nothing!  I just hope that didn't register on the Richter Scale!"  
  
"Or wake the kids," he added meekly.  
  
"Welp, that's it," Stan said, wiping tears from below his fogged glasses.  
  
"That's what?" Ford asked, fanning himself like it would extinguish the burning in his cheeks, wondering how weird it would be to pull his sweater's collar up over his head and disappear inside.  
  
"Hearing you let one rip like we're kids again is the cure for a bad day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wkdw eudlqb expsnlq frxog uxlq hyhubwklqj
> 
>  
> 
> [ Codes from past chapters ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
>  
> 
> ~With that many broken mirrors, you'd better hope the superstitions aren't true...
> 
> ~I guess them sharing meals is kind of a theme. I guess instead of "monster of the week", it's "meal of the week." Though, I'm not actually sure how many more chapters will follow this format, if any. 
> 
>  
> 
> I still have no idea how this is going to end. *dies*


	15. Mental Manipulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's going on? Why is the text getting all wavy? And is that... someone strumming a harp? Oh... Oh no! NO! Not a flashback! Ahhh no! Quick, run for it before painful memories are recounted in vivid detail as if we're reliving them again!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Non-graphic violence, blood, and injury. Mental and psychological torture, fake gore (nothing the show didn't do), attempted murder, pepper spray, and suicidal thoughts.
> 
> ~In the category of things I should have guessed but didn't know for sure until looking it up - glasses do not protect against pepper spray...
> 
> ~Thanks to this chapter, I now know a bunch of things about crossbows that I'd been meaning to look up for ages. Whee!
> 
> ~Sorry this chapter is late. There's a write up [ here ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/172843497813/writing-updates) that explains everything.

"Huh, that shoulda worked," Stan mumbled, his black and silver wig shifting as he scratched at it.  He'd spent hours setting up the heated mask and wax for his best Summerween spook, a stunt that made it look like his face was melting, dripping from his skull right before the eyes of unsuspecting trick-or-treaters.  It did manage to send a few kids screaming off into the woods, admittedly.  However, two unimpressed boys, one clad in camouflage and the other wrapped up like a mummy, simply glared at him like he was a joke, and not in the good way.  
  
For his second trick, he'd spent an hour padding his stomach with sausages and fake blood packs but, it ended up feeling like a waste in every way.  His disembowelment stunt didn't even faze the pair of young boys and had left him with a torn and red-stained shirt that reeked of hot dogs.  As for the pile of sausages, he'd sooner eat a soda can than touch those after they'd been coiled in whatever filth covered the back porch's planks.  He wouldn't even let Gompers try them and he actually  _did_  eat soda cans on occasion.  Even worse was that Ford had probably seen it all from back porch's camera.  Stan had never had so much trouble becoming nightmare fuel for trick-or-treaters before.  He had to find a way to up his game.  
  
With the meat and goo gathered into a bag and tossed in the trash can, Stan left the shouts of children and the sweet scent of Jack-o'-melons behind in favor of the silence of his bedroom and its comforting musk of cedar and cigars.  At least he could take a break there and regroup.  
  
His shirt was ruined but he'd been expecting that and had found a few spares at the Trash-to-Treasure thrift shop, but, with the same kids still out there, it meant he couldn't simply switch out it out and pack it with the remaining sausages in the fridge.  He'd have to come up with a new costume altogether.  So, in the golden light of his bedside lamp, he set to it.  Sighing, he pulled off his wig and tossed it into a box of old ties and handkerchiefs near the closet.  He tugged the fake fangs from his mouth and, out of pure muscle memory, dropped them into the cup on his nightstand which usually held his dentures.  Despite his own bellyaching, he let them stay there for now.    
  
Once he'd shed his coat, pants, and accessories, he climbed over piles of magazines and unfolded laundry to hang them in the closet.  All that was left was to remove and dispose of the ruined shirt.  He lifted the shirttails, examining the false blood soaking the tattered fibers around a tear across his stomach.  The sight sent a shiver through him but he bit it back, brushing aside the warning shots his mind had fired.  Why was a little fake blood churning his stomach like the things he'd seen in his days of working for Rico?  For a moment, he debated packing it in for the night, a sudden surge of exhaustion fogging his mind.  
  
No.  He couldn't give up yet.  He'd promised his brother he'd be the master of fright and, damn it, he was going to deliver.  He'd find something else to try...  
  
And that was when Waddles peeked around the door frame, round eyes peering into his bedroom.  
  
_That's it!_  
  
Minutes later he was at the back door again dressed in his boxers and tank top.   _This time for sure_ , he thought, opening the door to the two boys chanting, "we want candy!"  
  
"Alright, ya got me, kids," he grumbled.  "You guys win.  I guess I'm not that scary, ya' know, you've...  You've...  No. Ah AHH!"  His back arched in agony, limbs stiff and straining as Waddles burst forth from the cotton covering his stomach, the pig's snorting and squealing melding with Stan's gravely howl into an off-key cacophony.  "Why?! Why is there a pig jumping out of my chest?!"  
  
Not a single scream or flinch came in reply, just an exchange of glares between the boys and an agitated resurgence of the chants for candy.  
  
Waddles flopped out of Stan's shirt like an armadillo plopped onto its back, rolled upright, and strolled away.  
  
"What scares you two freaks?" Stan griped, his arms spread in frustration.   
  
The two boys exchanged knowing glances.  
  
"Here," one of them said, holding up a cell phone, "Watch this."  
  
He leaned down, adjusting his glasses and squinting at the screen as a cute cat video played.  "What, what is this?" He asked, "Some kinda- some kinda kitten or-" the screen flashed to the image of a monster, stretching its exposed muscles to the limit, dripping in viscous fluids of various colors.  His hands flew to the screen, covering it as he scrambled backwards into the shack, slamming the door behind him.  
  
His heart pounded against his ribs, his lungs desperate for air that couldn't squeeze through the tightness of his chest.   _Why?  WHY?_   He thought.   _Why are these dumb little things getting to me tonight?_   Finally able to draw in a decent breath, he stared into the mirror hanging beside the door and lamented, "What happened to you, Stan Pines? What happened?"  The question dug deeper than simply wondering why he'd been scared so easily or why he'd lost his ability _to_ scare.  Over the past few years, it felt as though he and Ford had become complacent with their situation, like they'd accepted it as their form of normal when there was, according to Ford, definitely some way of freeing him from Bill's grasp.  It was maddening, Stan thought, that Bill managed to dangle the memory of knowing there was some way of helping himself above Ford, like a treat over a begging dog's head, but keeping the memories of how to actually do it constantly out of his reach.  
  
Stan let out a slow breath, his hand resting over the clammy skin of his stomach exposed by the hole in his shirt.  He lifted the hem, sticking his hand through the hole and wiggling his fingers.  His eyes clinched closed and he flung the shirt off over his head, wadded it up, then threw it across the hall.  It flopped onto the taxidermy dodo bird, rocking its stand against the corner and draping over it, the hole in the shirt's stomach staring back at him.  
  
"Stan Pines, you're a real dumbass," he scolded himself.  It was like some masochistic part of his mind was purposely poking at the cage where beastly memories slept.  
  
No.  He refused to focus on it.  It happened decades ago.  If he could, he'd physically stuff the memory away in a storage trunk weighted with rocks, wrap chains around it, and throw it off the nearest dock.  "Dumb ass," he cursed himself again.  "Didn't think those stunts through, did ya, Stan?"  Why had he chosen stomach gore, anyway?  Was it because these memories were awakening again whether he liked it or not, stirring in their cages, looking to be fed?  Was it some kind of twisted, subconscious way of working through them?  "Damn it!  Stay in the past where you belong!" he pleaded, breath coming in puffs and pants as if he'd just gone ten rounds against Crampelter in boxing practice.  
  
He stumbled up the stairs as if he could run away from the vivid visions flashing through his head, visions of that exact staircase thirty years ago, before one of the steps was broken, before the finish on the wood had faded and worn away, before they creaked and cracked under every step.  
  
_He tried to... And I...  
_  
Bits and pieces surfaced in his mind as he bounced between the wall and rickety stair rail.  He shook his head and interrupted himself, "No.  Don't go there, Stan."  
  
The walls were clean now, spotted with family photos, but, as if they'd never been washed away, he could see streaks of blood, hand prints dripping-- his hand prints.  He hobbled into the bathroom, the door remaining ajar as he leaned over the sink.  He ran cold water over his hands, splashed his face, breath so ragged that it left him dizzy.  He slid to the floor, leaning back against the bathtub, hand pressed to his stomach.  Maybe it hadn't left a physical scar but, the fact remained...  
  
_He tried to kill me._    
  
****  
  
1982 - 618 Gopher Rd, Gravity Falls, Oregon.    
  
The winter winds had been relentless, blasting snow against the cabin to the point where it howled and rang in Stan's ears.  His muscles ached from helping his brother the day before in his urgent need to dismantle what he'd dubbed a potential doomsday device.  Between that and the still stinging burn on his shoulder from a nearly tragic fight between them, Ford had told him to get some rest while he cleaned up a few things. "Besides," he'd said, "Not like we can do much more with that storm going on out there."  
  
So, Stan took advantage as if it was a snow day when they were kids, deciding to laze around and read some of the comics Ford had stored up in the attic.  Part of Stan couldn't believe he'd kept those old monster comics but part of him knew the nerd was still collecting them.  With an arm full of semi-recent issues, he made his way to a lab he and Ford were planning to turn into a functional living room.  So far, they had cleared some of the lab equipment from one of the corners, set up an armchair, and repurposed a dinosaur skull as a side table for the sake of having some place for a proper lamp.  Ford had promised they would get a TV as soon as the storm cleared up enough to go out again but, even without one, the cozy corner was closest thing to a real living room Stan had seen in years.  
  
As he flipped through an issue of The Swamp Devil, he tried to lean back in the orange and yellow striped cushions, craving the warmth that would build as they cradled his body.  But despite the gauze and ointment Ford had plastered over his shoulder, it throbbed under the pressure.  He pulled his hoodie tighter around himself, cursing at its broken zipper, another casualty of his fight they'd had last week.  Since then, Ford had insisted he needed a warmer coat if he planned on staying in Oregon, even if his hoodie's threadbare fabric and splatter of stains felt like old friends.  But, the single Peso in his pocket wasn't going to buy him so much as a sock with the toes missing and he certainly wasn't willing to take up his twin's offer to buy him something.  
  
Or was he?  
  
He'd worried about his failures, worried what Ford would think of him, but Ford...?  Ford didn't hesitate to point out his own failures.  "I've made huge mistakes," was one of the first things he'd said to him after ten years apart, and from what Stan had seen, he wasn't exaggerating.  Maybe he did have a better start, maybe his past decade was spent doing things he loved in a place where he felt relatively safe, but, ultimately, it amounted to a failure that shattered his trust in others, nearly rained destruction down on the world, and left him with a demon trashing his brain, unraveling his psyche, and treating his body like his own whipping post.  Maybe he  _would_  take his brother up on the offer, if only to make him feel at least a tiny bit better.  Maybe Ford  _had_  failed at this just like Stan had failed at countless endeavors over the past decade, but, as he'd tried to point out to Ford, that didn't make either one of them a failure as people.  Ford believed it about as much as he believed it, himself.  
  
_Where is that dork anyway?_   Stan thought, his blood running cold as he realized the wind, rattling the windows and whistling through the shingles, was the only sound in the house.  
  
He shivered as he left the armchair, unsure if it was truly from the frigid air or from the way his hair stood up at the back of his neck.  He checked the kitchen first, finding nothing more than the lingering smell of eggs and toast and a blur of white and grey beyond the window.  From the sight of the dull light barely illuminating the room, Stan swore he could feel the clouds pushing down on the roof from above.  
  
Next, he checked the labs, weaving around tanks filled with lord knows what and machines that had fallen cold and silent over the past few days.  He looked over his shoulders in the dark, swearing he caught glimpses of yellow eyes following him through the house.  Finally, he headed for the room without a bed that Ford had dubbed his bedroom.  _Nerd never was much for sleeping, anyway_ , he thought as he opened the intricately carved door.    
  
Yet, there he was, doing the one thing Stan promised he wouldn't let him do unless he was tied to the sofa.  Sleeping.  
  
_Shit_.    
  
He had fallen asleep in his rolling chair, bent over the desk in his bed-less bedroom, head resting on his arms in the yellow glow of his desk lamp.  
  
For the past week and, apparently, multiple times before, a demon had been possessing his brother every time he fell asleep.  At first, the monster had used Ford's body to attack Stan, nearly driving him away.  Stan had actually left at one point and checked into a hotel under the name of Lee Evergreen but he couldn't stand the thought of leaving his brother like that.  When he'd returned, he'd regretted ever leaving.  Even after a week, Ford's hands and arms were still bandaged from the damage the demon had done.  
  
Since then, It appeared that being bound at night had finally allowed Ford at least a few hours of proper rest, but that demon, or whatever it was, had apparently been busy even then.  He'd spent the nights rummaging through Ford's memories, rearranging his thoughts, as many as possible, before anything that could be used against him surfaced.  Stan wondered if he was at it again.  If he was, someone needed to put a stop to it.  
  
Stan edged closer, across the area rug and toward his sleeping sibling.  His hand slipped into his pocket, resting on a can of pepper spray as his other willingly reached into dangerous territory, tapping his brother's shoulder.  When he didn't wake, he gave him a gentle shake, his voice gravely as he tried to whisper, "Ford?  Hey..."  
  
He jolted awake, swiveling around in his chair and pushing away.  It rolled across the floor and he tumbled out of it, catching himself on his knees and huffing for breath as the chair thumped to the floor beside him.  
  
"Ford.  It's alright.  It's just me," Stan said, kneeling in front of him, hand reaching for his shoulder.  
  
"You..." Ford growled, a low sound that shot through Stan like an electric shock as he realized, he'd heard the demon's whiny voice every other time Ford had taken that tone with him, but this...  This wasn't it.  
   
Stan backed off, heels under his haunches as instinct drew the pepper spray from his pocket.  He stretched his arm, holding it defensively between himself and his brother before realizing...    
  
_That's not pepper spray._  
  
His heart dropped to his stomach in what he swore was an audible clunk.  In his panic, he'd drawn his switchblade, mistaking it for the pepper spray still stuck in his pocket.  Before he could stuff it back in its place, a leg swept below him, knocking him onto his side, the switchblade slipping from his grasp and sliding to the edge of the area rug.  His burned shoulder collided with the ground sending stars across his vision as pain sizzled through his nerves, the force of his body wrinkling the rug against the sofa.  He scrambled toward his blade on his stomach, clawing at the carpet, gathering it in his hands to drag its edge and, by extension, the blade closer to his grasp.  His brother (or  _was_ it the demon?) leapt to his feet and stepped over him, one boot stomping squarely on his back, the other clomping against the wooden floor beside his head, barely missing a chunk of his hair draped on the ground.  Ford's hand smacked down over the blade's faux wood casing, bandaged fingers curling around it.  He drew his posture to his full height, looming over Stan.  With a flick of his wrist and a metallic snikt, the blade sprang forth.   
    
"Ford?  FORD!  What're you doing?"  Stan rolled away from the swipe of his own weapon, regaining his footing over the wrinkled rug, bobbing back and forth and up and down, dodging flailing limbs, trying to catch a glimpse of his brother's eyes beyond the wild barrage.  Backed up against the desk, he reached for the pepper spray but his hand didn't make it into his pocket before Ford swiped again, knocking books and papers to the floor when Stan ducked to the side.  He tried to punch back but Ford had picked up more from their boxing lessons than he'd thought, dodging every blow.  
  
The blade sailed through the air again and Stan leapt to one side, stumbling onto the sofa as the blade sliced his upper arm.  In an instinctual maneuver, he rebounded from the cushions and swung himself around behind Ford, his arms tucking under his brother's and pulling him backwards off of his feet.  He wrestled him to the ground, flinging his head back as the blade swung for his eyes, missing its mark, but gouging the bridge of his nose.  Blood dripped off the tip of his nose and down onto Ford's shirt, seeping through the fibers in specks and blotches.  Through the haze of pain-fueled adrenaline, Stan pinned his brother's fist, tickling under his arm until his fingers flexed and the blade slipped from his grasp.  
  
Stan dove for it, rolling over it and back onto his feet again only to stumble over the sofa and land on his knees on its cushions.  He pressed the blade back into the casing and dropped it behind the sofa, well out of both of their immediate reaches.  
  
Ford, rocked forward onto his knees, eyes finally visible as he glared up at Stan through tousled brown curls.  They were bloodshot and angry, yes, but glowing and yellow?  No.  They were his natural hue but brimming with a red-hot rage Stan never knew they were capable of.  Not even when he'd faced his wrath after accidentally wrecking his science project, were they this vengeful.  
  
"You ruined everything!" Ford spat, lifting himself into the fighting stance they'd both mastered during their lessons.  "I almost had it!  The trans-dimensional gateway was fully operational!  Then you showed up and destroyed it all!  My life's work is gone because of you!"  
  
"Destroyed...  What?" Stan said, chest heaving as he lifted himself from the sofa.  "But you're the one who asked me to come here.  And you're the one who took the sledgehammer to-"  
  
"Liar!  You're worse than our mother," Ford accused, fists raised and ready.  "Every word from your mouth is a lie!" He swung and Stan caught his fist, spinning him around and down onto the sofa.  "You were never anything more than a cheater and a conman and I won't let you feed me your deception anymore!" he declared, his fist pounding into the cushion.  "I don't need you.  I don't need anyone!"   
  
Stan's shoulders sank for a moment before rising again, framing his face in fuming fury.  "I'M not the one who summoned a demon," he began, his voice low and steady but edging closer to a yell with every word, "I'M not the one who built a doomsday device.  I'M not the one who wrote to you begging for help!"  He leaned over ford, his finger practically wagging in his face until the throbbing of his shoulder sent memories of their last fight buzzing through his body.  With a deep breath, his posture relaxed, his mind reasoning with himself before attempting to do so with Ford.  "Listen," he said, "I don't wanna fight you.  I thought we settled this.  How 'bout we go grab a couple 'a sodas, sit down and..."  
  
"No.  No!"  Ford bolted upright, his hand slicing through the air, khaki coat billowing behind him.  In words laced with coffee and bourbon, he spat, "That's exactly what you want!  You want me to trust you so you can tie me up again!  So you can keep me locked up here!  So you can-" Ford's words trailed off as he recoiled, brows furrowed and eyes wide in terror.  "No," he said, his posture stiffening like it had when he tried to defy his bullies as a child, "W-we're done talking!"  With a turn, he sped through the door and into the hall, bouncing off the walls and bracing a hand against the floor every few leaps to keep his balance until he reached the stairs to the basement.  Stan clambered after him, breaths coming in ragged puffs as he ran into piles of anomalous specimens and tripped over scattered books and papers.  He took the stairs two at a time but, damn that nerd had gotten fast over the years.  All of that running from bullies had practically made him into a track racer.  
  
He hopped off the last step, reaching out to catch the elevator door but it slammed shut just as his fingers crumpled against it.  _Damn.  DAMN!_ He wondered if he should wait, if he should go after Ford at all or if he should let him cool down...  Or if he even would cool down.  Or if he'd come back upstairs with some kind of sci-fi super weapon.  They'd cleared the upstairs rooms of Ford's weapon stash, locking them up until they could be sold or disposed of, but, the basement?  They hadn't gotten that far and Stan honestly didn't know what might be down there.  Except...  Ford's crossbow.   
  
His finger hit the elevator button in rapid succession as if the multiple prodding would summon it faster.  
  
_Idiots.  We're both idiots,_ his mind screamed at him as the elevator whirred its way back up.  
  
Ford hadn't been ready to give up all of his weapons yet, especially one he'd admired in the family pawn shop since they were kids, and Stan _I'm such an idiot_ had agreed to let him keep it for now.   They'd both figured, that if that demon possessed him, he would probably just be frustrated that Ford’s particular model of crossbow needed a cocking rope to make it into something other than a blunt object to hit things with.  But, clearly, Ford wasn't possessed...  
  
By the time Stan reached the basement, it was too late.  Through dim light playing off kicked up clouds of dust, Between busted control panels and the warped and scattered shells of supercomputers, Ford already had his crossbow cocked and loaded, aimed straight at Stan's head.  _At least it isn't some sort of blaster_ , Stan thought as he lifted his hands in surrender.  "Whoa," he said, coughing as the odor of machine oil and metal caught in his throat, "You, uh...  You're gonna put out an eye with that thing-"  
  
"That's the point," Ford growled, grinding his feet into the dirt to steady his stance.  "Now get out.  Get out before I-"  
  
"What?  Kill me?  Are you really that pissed off?!  That you'd kill your own twin?"  
  
"Stop it.  Stop pulling that on me!"   
  
Ford took a step toward him and Stan took one back, swallowing hard as if to break through the suffocating tightness of his chest.   _This is it, he_  thought, his pulse pounding through his veins, sweat trickling, cold, down his face.   _After everything I've managed to survive, this is how I'm gonna die, shot in the head by my own brother and left to rot in his basement while he rebuilds that thing and destroys the world..._  
  
"You don't care about me!" Ford ranted, edging closer, blue and red light gleaming across his glasses, "You only care about yourself!  You're just using me.  You stole my journal and now you're keeping me trapped in my own home, trying to garner fame and fortune from my research while denying me my greatest contribution to the field!" he sputtered, shaking with unbridled rage yet...  Hesitating.  
  
He hadn't shot yet.  
  
"T-that makes no sense, Ford.  Think about it a minute," Stan said, steadying his stutter, hands balled into fists past the numbing buzz jolting through his arms.  "Your journal fell through that thing you built and ended up in, I don't know, sci-fi space world or something.  And, if I wanted to use you to get rich and famous, wouldn't I WANT you to build that gateway thing?"  
  
"I-"  Ford's limbs trembled and, this time, it wasn't from rage.  His finger tensed against the trigger, yet the weapon wavered in uncertainty.  Stan lowered his arms, heart in his throat as he tested to see how far he could go before his brother pulled the trigger.   _If I'm gonna die anyway, may as well go down fighting...  
  
_ He stepped closer and closer, backing Ford against the door to the gateway's former danger zone, trapping him between the control room's wall and the busted operation panel.  He leaned in closer until the crossbow's bolt practically cut into his forehead.  
  
"Do it," the words choked over his heart pounding in his throat,  "Go ahead.  Just put me out of my damn misery already."  
  
He pressed forward again and Ford's back hit the door, his elbows angled out on either side of the crossbow.  
  
"Well, are you gonna do it?"  Stan asked, his voice resigned.  When no response came, he yelled, "Go on!  Do it!" his voice dragging tears from the corners of his eyes, trailing hot streaks over his cheeks.  
  
Ford's brows lifted in uncertainty, his mouth twitching and stretching over gritted teeth, the war in his mind leaking out in the wrinkling around his eyes.  
  
Stan's arms surged up and he grabbed the crossbow, pointing it toward the floor in a burst of strength.  Ford Struggled to lift it, gaining some height, the bolt aimed pointblank at Stan's stomach.  His finger trembled against the trigger, trying to keep it steady.  
  
_This is it,_  the thought coursed through Stan's mind again.   _I'll die with an arrow in my gut...  No!_  It was as if the notion fueled his defenses.  His grasp on the crossbow tightened and he jerked it to the side.  Ford thrashed it back, the protruding bolt's tip catching Stan's stomach, slicing through his shirt and into the flesh below.  
  
Ford's hands slackened at the sight and Stan took full advantage, slamming his entire body against his brother's side.  The crossbow fell slack in his hands and Stan scrambled for it, snatching it away.  Ford propelled himself from the door, diving toward Stan.  He kicked his foot out before him, heel digging into the dirt to bring his body to a halt as Stan lifted the crossbow, his eyes wavering behind it like a frightened puppy, finger twitching over the trigger.  
  
Ford settled, glaring at him.  "You may as well do it," he commanded, fists clenched.  "Kill me.  Take my research and-" a sharp "oof" interrupted his words as Stan charged forward, the crossbow clattering to the ground.  Ford tumbled backwards, his head colliding with the portal's smashed control panel before he crumpled to the floor, out cold.    
  
_I'm not dead..._  
  
Stan snatched the weapon away, replacing the bolt in the flight groove just in case.  He'd learned a fast lesson that a sleeping Ford, even an unconscious one, was a dangerous Ford.  However, he hadn't quite processed the implications of a fully conscious Ford who'd been frenzied by falsehoods yet.  
  
He stepped away on rubbery legs, one hand pressed over the bleeding gash in his stomach the other clutching the crossbow.  Blood dripped from the gash across his nose down to his mouth, the metallic taste thick on his tongue.  He grit his teeth through the searing pain radiating from the burn on his shoulder and aimed the crossbow at Ford even as he remained motionless on the floor.  
  
His hand shook as Ford rolled over.  He steadied the crossbow, struggling against the weight at its front end to adjust his aim as his brother pushed himself back up to his knees and used the control panel to lift himself to his full height.  His head snapped up, eyes glowing bright yellow behind a new crack in his glasses.  Stan's finger twitched at the trigger, torn between instinct and sentiment.  
  
"Go ahead.  Pull the trigger," Bill's voice taunted.  "You may as well kill him after you ruined his life and all."  
  
"You..."  Stan snarled, realization flashing in his eyes, "It's you!  You did this to him!  I don't know how but you did this to him!"  
  
"Playing with anger is like playing with matches.  So easy to make everything burn," he said, snapping Ford's fingers.  "The hard part was rearranging the pieces of his memories to back it up and imprinting his feelings about me onto you.  But, the look on your face right now is worth it!  Go ahead.  Shoot," Bill encouraged, puffing Ford's chest out against the bolt's tip, spotting his shirt in more of his brother's blood.  "Put him out of his misery."  
  
Stan stepped back and snatched the bolt from the flight groove.  He threw the crossbow aside and held the bolt in both hands, thumbs straining until it broke.  The pieces fell to the dirt below as he held up his empty palms.  He glared at the monster in his brother's mind with sheer defiance, then brushed his palms together and shrugged.  "Look," he said, exasperated, one hand tucking into his pocket, "Bob, or whatever your name is-"  
  
"Bill."  
  
"Whatever.  See," he continued, poking a finger into Ford's chest, "This body you're using belongs to my brother.  And I just got him back.  And I ain't lettin' no one tear us apart ever again!" With that, his hand flew from his pocket, can of pepper spray clutched between his fingers.  "Sorry, Ford," he said and pressed down on the nozzle.  
  
"Ahhh Ahhhh!" Bill screamed, reeling back against the door with a thud.  Ford's body slid to the ground, knees around his ears and hands cupped over his eyes, glasses askew, as Bill coughed and wheezed.   
  
Stan reached for a length of rope coiled under the control panel, arm stretching past sharp edges of broken metal.   _Got it!_ With as gentle of a tug as he could give while still being firm, he pulled his brother's writhing body to his feet, the demon's screams shifting to a laugh even as he kept Ford's eyes slammed shut, hacking and huffing for breath every so often.  The noise rang in Stan's ears as he drew Ford's hands behind his back, bound his wrists, and tied the fastest knot he'd tied since they were practicing for their travels on the Stan 'O War.  Again, as gently as he could, he swept Ford's legs out from under him and lowered him to the ground.    
  
"That was fun!" Bill crooned, forcing Ford's eyes to flutter open for a moment.  "Wow, I can't see a thing.  Hope you didn't just blind him with whatever that stuff was."  He laughed again, eyes closing over stinging tears.  He wiggled Ford's body like a worm on a hot plate, doing everything in his power to stop Stan from tying the other end of the rope around Ford's ankles.  "This round isn't over yet," he warned, "Just wait til' he wakes up again!"  
  
And with that, the demon was gone and Ford's body fell limp against the dirt.  
  
****  
  
Ford awoke to pressure against the side of his head and something icy dripping through his hair from a frozen spot above his right ear.  His head was tilted back, resting somewhat awkwardly against something not exactly soft but that seemed to cradle it perfectly.  Someone's hand, perhaps?  He tried to open his eyes but the sensation of rough terrycloth, smothered in lukewarm liquid that smelled like old milk with a lingering hint of Daybreak Dish Soap stopped him.  He leaned forward, the cloth falling to his lap, and opened his eyes to a dry burn and a bright light that hit him like a machete through his skull.  He slammed them shut again, groaning with the pounding of his head.  The frozen object sloshed against him, chilling the tip of his ear beneath it.  He tried to lift his hand to brush it away and panic slammed into him, consuming every limb with a tingling terror.  His eyes flew open despite everything.  His body bucked, arms straining, legs squirming, but nothing would budge.    
  
Whoever had tied him to the kitchen chair had definitely done this before.  His breath failed him as he realized, this wasn't the first time he'd woken up with ropes wrapped around his wrists and ankles, his vision blurred without his glasses.  How many times had it been over the past week?  Six?  Seven?  He couldn't remember.  But, what he did remember, was that it all started when HE arrived and stole his research.  
  
Shoulders tensed and teeth gritted, he tugged his head away from the dripping icy object and looked up.  
  
"Whoa, there.  Don't hurt yourself," his brother said, drawing his hands back, an ice bag clutched in one of them.  He loomed in silhouette against the kitchen's overhead light, framed in a blur of grey and white from the window behind.  
  
"What do you care if I do?" Ford spat, his voice hoarse and throat raw, as if a series of sand spurs clung to every word grating through it.  His head snapped forward and down, refusing to give his captor the satisfaction of eye contact even as the milk seeped from the hand towel on his lap into his pants.  
  
A week.  It had been one week since his brother showed up out of nowhere and took a sledgehammer to his life's work right in front of him.  The clangs and clunks, pounding like a pile driver, had echoed through his head but all he could do was watch as sheets of metal bent and broke from their frames below the blows.  Ever since, his life had been a daze of waking up exactly like this and working on some unidentified project, something that was going to make his brother rich and famous, he was sure, all while he kept the inventor locked up in his own home.  Why?  Was it some form of revenge?  A way of getting back at him for wanting to pursue something other than their childhood dream?   _He's the one who ruined MY project, if anyone should want revenge, it should be-_  "Ah!" he gasped.  He bit back a hiss as the ice pressed against the sore spot on the side of his head again.  His head tipped away but his brother was persistent, cupping it from the other side.  
  
"How are your eyes?" Stan asked, releasing Ford's head for a moment to pluck the dishtowel from his lap, "Can you see alright again?"  
  
"My eyes?" He rasped, panic surging again as he jerked his head away from the ice pack, "I could see fine if you'd give me my glasses, why?  What did you do to me?!"   
  
"I-" The word drew out painfully long and Ford could hear drops of milk hitting the floorboards as gravity drained them from the towel.  Finally, the rest of the sentence blurted, "kinda had to pepper spray you because that demon possessed you again but I washed it all off and-"  
  
"Liar.  Stop lying to me!" Ford croaked, thrashing in his chair again.  
  
"Hey, stop it," the voice came from behind, mixed with the flop of the towel and clatter of the ice bag landing in the sink, "We gotta make sure you don't have a concussion-"  
  
"Why?" Ford interrupted, "Why are you doing this?  Let me go!" he demanded, shifting and slinking in the chair but only managing to make his head hurt more.  Why did his brother care if he was concussed or if his head might bruise?  He didn't seem to care about any of the other bruises he'd inflicted over the past week.  And why did he care if he'd somehow blinded him with pepper spray or not.  And why, after ten years, had he suddenly decided to invade his home and...  And...  
  
And panic struck again, shooting through his chest and limbs like electric waves and he bucked against his bonds, screaming out past the rawness in his throat, "Help!  Someone help me!"  He didn't care that they were out in the middle of the woods, that a blizzard howled outside, that there was no way anyone would hear him.  He screamed and screamed, eyes clenched closed until he realized, he was alone.  
  
His brother had left him tied up in the kitchen, alone.  
  
***  
  
Stan climbed halfway up the stairs to the second story, fingers intertwined with brown curls as he plugged his ears to drown out his brother's hoarse cries for help.  "I'm trying," he whimpered, heat prickling the backs of his eyes and spilling over his cheeks.  "I don't know what else to do to help you..."  
  
He toppled sideways against the wall half-way up, leaning there as a ragged sob shook him.  He grimaced at the streaks and hand prints of drying blood he'd trailed along the wall on his last trip up.  His wounds weren't fatal, thank any God that might exist, but they sure bled a lot.  He'd managed to find enough supplies in the bathroom cabinet to pad his nose with gauze and to bandage the slice across his arm.  He’d tacked butterfly bandages over the gash in his stomach and covered the whole thing in antibacterial ointment and gauze but his shirt still hung in bloody tatters around it, bringing bile to the back of his throat.  
  
In his haze, he traced a crimson dribble up the wood paneling to a full hand print whose fingertips stained the bottom edge of an oval frame.  He hadn't noticed it before.  How could he possibly have missed it for an entire week?  He stepped to the side, leaning on the stair rail and squinting through grey dimness to make out the photo.  
  
His mother and father stood behind two young boys sitting together in an armchair, dressed like pirates.  It was Halloween and they'd just finished their rounds of trick-or-treating and, on a rare occasion, their father had been impressed by how much candy they'd gathered.  There were good times.  There really were...  
  
"I hate you!"  The words shook the walls and steps beneath him, striking through him to his core.  Did he hear it right?  Was it some figment of his imagination, or did his brother just yell-  
  
"I hate you, Stanley Pines!"  
  
He plugged his ears again before the strings of curses and insults started.     
  
_He tried to kill me...  Why am I still freezing my ass off in this dumb cabin for a guy who hates me so much that he wants me dead?_ He wondered.  But, as he gazed at that photo through blurry eyes, he knew the answer.  He knew that that wasn't Ford down there.  Well, it was.  But not really.  Bill had definitely done something to him; wiped out memories or rearranged them or something.   Either way, Stan was far too stubborn to let some sadistic demon make him look like a sociopath in his brother's mind.  There had to be something around that would help, something that would piece the truth back together.  Something like that photo...    
  
And it hit him.  Ma had written to him last year when they had to sell the pawn shop and offered to send him some of their childhood things.  He'd written back that it would be better if she sent them to Ford.  And she did.  Photos, drawings, videos, she'd sent it all and it had to still be there somewhere.  "He wouldn't have just thrown those things away, right?  Right?" he chanted to himself as he raced to the attic.  
  
****  
  
Ford drooped forward in his chair by the time Stan returned.  He didn't look up, simply grit his teeth, eyes half-lidded below matted brown curls, wondering what would come next.  His throat hurt to the point where he could taste the burn, his head throbbed, and he'd all but lost feeling in his legs and arms.  
  
"I hate you," he croaked.  
  
Stan ignored it and hobbled toward the table, arms straining beneath a musty box loaded in photo albums and notebooks, a sledgehammer nearly sliding out of his grip below.  He set the box on the table and the sledgehammer on the floor then turned to his twin.  
  
"Some part of me thinks you're a real jackass for everything you've put me through today but, some part knows you ain't in your right mind.  So, I DON'T hate you," Stan said, "And I prolly never will.  Now hold still so I don't jab ya in the eye with your own glasses."  
  
Ford obeyed, allowing himself a shred of relief as his glasses cleared his vision.  He peered up at his brother, blind to the bloodied gauze covering his nose, the stained gash slashed through the arm of his hoodie, and the tousled state of his sloppy mullet.  His voice was almost entirely air bristling past his throat, perforated by dry coughs as he asked, "After all this time, why are you even here?"  
  
"Because of this," Stan answered, pulling the Gravity Falls postcard from his pocket and flipping it photo-side-down for Ford to see the words "PLEASE COME" scrawled in his own writing.  
  
It felt like his heart stopped.  Had he actually written that?  Why?  Did he bring this all on himself by trusting and reaching out to the wrong person?  And why couldn't he remember it?  
  
"Ford.  How could you even think I'd be capable of hurting you like this?" Stan asked, a waver in his already morose tone, as he set the postcard on the table, "Do you really think I'm that horrible?"  
  
He couldn't answer.  His mind blurred and he couldn't pull a single word from the tornado swirling through.  He didn't know when it got there but a photo album sat heavy on his lap, opened to a page with photos of them as kids, setting up displays in the pawn shop, running on the beach, riding the merry-go-round at the pier.  The storm in his mind settled leaving mangled memories in its wake, but, as Stan knelt before him, flipping the pages, he was able to sort through the debris and begin to rebuild.  
  
"You called me here to help you," Stan explained as he lifted the album from his brother's lap.  "And that's what I'm trying to do.  That demon, Bill, has been making you do things against your will.  And, I'm here to stop him."  
  
"Then why," Ford asked, still on edge, a growl tinting his creaky voice, "Why did you destroy my work?"  
  
Stan sighed and stood, reaching for the sledgehammer.  He set it on the floor in front of Ford with a dull thump and took the biggest risk he'd taken since reaching for the loaded crossbow aimed at his head less than two hours ago.  He untied one of Ford's hands.  
  
_This is my chance,_  Ford thought.   _Get the hammer, knock him out and you can call the police...  assuming the phone lines are still functional in this storm.  And that they'd even be able to get out here..._  
  
Cupped in both of his hands, Stan wrapped Ford's fingers around the sledgehammer's handle and said, "We destroyed it together.  Remember?"  
  
His palm pressed against the rough grain of dried wood and his fingers wrapped tightly around, muscles preparing him to lift it and swing.  But, he couldn't, not because his strength had failed him but because it felt like an earthquake jostled the debris of thoughts piled in his mind, uncovering survivors of the storm.  His fingers relaxed as Stan's hands released his own and his arm fell slack, hand barely holding on as the past week fell neatly back into place in his mind.  
  
"How dare he..." Ford breathed, eyes glossed over and head drooping against his chest, fingers lax as they fell away from the sledgehammer to hang at his side.  
  
Stan stepped back, unsure of which "he" Ford was talking about.  
  
Ford huffed breaths in and out as if fanning the flames of renewed anger but, this time, it burned as if following a line of gasoline toward Bill.  That monster taken a moment of solidarity, a moment of renewed brotherhood, and used it against them.  
  
Ford knew he'd been a mess when Stan had arrived in Gravity Falls.  Bill had already begun rearranging his thoughts, silly things like replacing serious words in his vocabulary with ridiculous ones, but Ford had never dreamed it could go this far.  After Stan arrived, Bill had made it obvious he was hiding vital information, though, what that information actually was or whether it even existed, Ford couldn't say.  He might have believed the demon was bluffing if not for the looping thoughts of the portal Bill kept fresh in his mind, the belief, the outright fixation on the NEED to repair it despite WANTING nothing more than to destroy it.    
  
Stan, though.  Stan was only trying to help.  He was finding ways for him to get some sleep, assuring he ate properly, trying to remind him of his true intentions, but bill kept harnessing his burning desire to destroy that damned portal and transforming it into fuel for the dying fire of his former need to create it.  The meddling in his mind built up an obsession so strong that Ford had berated Stan, argued with him, treated him horribly until, finally, after he delivered a particularly heinous verbal assault, Stan threatened to leave unless he made some effort toward dismantling the portal.  He had every right to.  
  
Ford's mind tore itself apart when Stan started packing his bag.  
  
"No...  No, please don't leave..." he'd thought.  He hated himself for everything he'd said, hated that somewhere inside, he knew it was all wrong, but the thoughts clashed against the former obsessions Bill had dredged back up, "Keep going, you're almost there.  It's almost done.  You'll finally be worth something.  People will finally like you.  They'll stop calling you a freak."  
  
But his brother was leaving.  With renewed strength, his present perspective fought back, "He's hurt because of me.  That shoulder could get infected.  Where will he stay?  He can't keep living in his car!  You need apologize.  He's leaving because of you.  You've done it again.  You drove someone away.  He'd rather go back to living in his car than stay with you and who could blame him?  You need to destroy that thing before it tears you and this world apart!  You need...  You need help!"  His chest hurt, his heart feeling as though it shattered and the shards ground against his lungs.  He couldn't do it again, couldn't stand by as someone else left him because he'd driven them away.  He couldn't even remember who else it was who had already left him, just that someone had and it HURT.  The haunting notion that he couldn't remember drove him to want that thing torn into scrap metal NOW.  He WANTED it so badly that it surged through his muscles while his mind _still_ screamed, "You're almost there, it's almost done, just a little more work."  
  
Without a word, he turned and ran, leaving Stan to do whatever he felt he needed to.  He sped through his lab and down the stairs to the elevator, hand slamming against the button to descend into the whir of computers and the comforting, no, aggravating, smells of metal and oil.  In the control room, he reached for the sledgehammer propped against the wall.  He lifted it over his shoulder and slammed it down into the blinking control panel.  He heaved it over his head and it sailed through the air again, metal splintering under the blow.  He swung it to the side, the head lodging squarely into the center of a supercomputer, sending sparks shooting out.  He glared through flickers of blue toward the wooden door.  Just beyond it was his life's work and the current bane of his existence.  He reached for the knob, hand steady despite the sweat plastering his shirt to his chest and the buzz of frazzled nerves.  With a twist, the door opened revealing the behemoth inverted triangle and the rainbow ring of lit sigils at its center.  
  
"Ford?"  He barely heard Stan's voice behind him as he advanced toward his life's biggest blunder, dragging the sledgehammer through the dirt behind him.  
  
Swing after swing brought the portal down in cascades of metal and sparks.  He rained down blows against metal over and over until his entire body burned, until his breath barely squeezed through his worn out windpipe, until he couldn't lift the sledgehammer one more time.  He tried.  He strained and struggled, lifting it barely an inch before it thumped into the dirt again.  He folded to his knees, still trying, still failing, sweat soaking the bandages on his hands and dripping over open blisters.  With a shout torn from his throat, his fist pounded into the nearest sheet of metal doing nothing but cracking his knuckles and drawing blood as he thrust it down again.  
  
A hand on his shoulder slowed his next punch but he didn't stop.  Weak thumps of his fist hitting scrapped metal thrummed like a heartbeat for a good minute and a half before he looked up to find his brother standing over him.  He hadn't realized his other hand still held the sledgehammer in a death grip until one of Stan's rested atop it.  His grip slackened, the sting of new callouses setting in as his brother's hands wrapped around the handle and eased it from his grasp.  Stan looked at him through concerned eyes, asking an unspoken question.  
  
Ford gave a single nod and Stan swung the sledgehammer over his shoulder.  He picked up where Ford left off, swing after swing demolishing the metal structure, every beat resonating through Ford's body like a wave of relief.   Stan swung and swung until he, too,  could no longer lift the weight and fell to his knees beside his brother, blistered hands releasing the sledgehammer.  
  
Among the dust and sparks, the ache of torn muscles and the stench of their own sweat, Ford let out a light laugh, a breathy sound of victory.  It turned to a hearty, infectious laugh as he used his khaki lab coat to wipe dirt and blood from his hands, offering the hem to Stan to do the same only to find him using the sides of his pants for the purpose.  Without a word between them, with nothing more than a knowing glance, they knew they were thinking the same thing.  If they'd been kids back home, their mother would have thrown a fit about how she was the one who had to do the laundry.  Even though the years had shone validity onto her point, they couldn't stop snickering.  Within moments, both he and Stan roared with laughter, tears streaming down their faces as they knelt in the dirt of what looked like the set for a horror movie and, for the first time in years, they both felt like family again.  
  
And Bill had taken that moment thrown it back in their faces.  Fury didn't begin to describe whatever it was raging through Ford's entire being.  He seethed in his chair, muscles wound tight until he felt a hand on his shoulder.  Stanley.  
  
Oh God.  
  
Stanley.  
  
His eyes focused in on his own shirt, white fabric bunched around ropes binding him to a chair.  _No.  no no no no no!_ Splotches of blood, blood that, for once, was not his own confirmed his fears.  Horror struck him, seizing his limbs in a frozen sweat.  His head snapped up finding a warm smile on his brother's face despite the gauze wrapped over his nose and the bloodied shreds of fabric flopping over more gauze wrapped around his stomach.  His eyes widened, mouth stretched open as if to cry out but no noise could squeeze through his throat.  
  
_I tried to...  No...  NO!_  
  
He wanted to scream, wished his eyes weren't too dry to shed any tears but still nothing came save for a look of sheer horror.  His mouth moved but no words emerged.  He couldn't even think them to speak them.  
  
_How do you apologize for trying to kill your own brother?_  
  
He didn't know.  He didn't know where to begin as the scenes flashed before him, as the realizations hit him like the snow pelting against the window outside.  He'd tried to kill his own twin, aimed a crossbow at his head!  _And, thank all the gods in the multiverse, he got that thing away from me,_ he thought,  memories of the crossbow aimed at himself playing back in his mind.  He lowered his head and, whether he liked it or not, the words slipped out, "you should have pulled the trigger."  
  
For the first time in their lives, Stan didn't snap back.  Instead, his arms wrapped around Ford, pressing his head against his chest.  
  
Ford's body quaked as a sob escaped.  Dry or no, his eyes found a way to form tears.  They spilled over his cheeks in warm rivulets, seeping into Stan's shirt.  He lifted his free hand, resting it over Stan's arm as if begging, "Please, don't leave me."  
  
"I don't hate you," Ford finally said, his voice soft and hoarse and catching on the heaving of his chest, "I don't hate you!"  
  
"I don't hate you, either," Stan replied calmly.  
  
It surprised Ford how much he'd needed to hear that.  It freed the clog of thoughts in his mind, letting them flow from his lips, "How can I even begin to apologize for this?  I'm sorry, Stanley.  I'm sorry!  I'm so sorry."  
  
"I know," he said in a hushed tone, "I know it was Bill messing with your head."  
  
"It was but that was still me.  That was still ME acting on it.  I didn't know I could be so...  so angry.  And...  and..." his breath hitched and he pulled away enough to look up to Stan.  His eyes were bloodshot, cheeks bright red and dripping, mouth hanging open as words hung up in his throat.  Finally, the raspy confession rattled out.  
  
"Stanley.  I'm scared."  
  
****  
  
Stan had been too.  Still was.  After all these years, it still scared him that Bill could try something like that again.  He breathed deeply and clutched the side of the bathtub, lifting himself onto shaking knees.  On autopilot, he slipped out of his clothes and into a towel and shower cap.  He focused on his breaths, purposely trying to derail his thoughts, sending the train down tracks toward ideas for more scare tactics he could try next year.  Maybe this year didn't go so well but he'd get those kids someday.  Yeah.  For now, he'd settle for a shower and some time in front of the TV with the Dipper and Mabel whenever they got back home.   
  
He stripped off his boxers and wrapped a towel around his waist then eased a shower cap over his hair.  With a sigh, he turned toward the tub and spoke to himself. "Wash away the shame, Stan.  Wash away the shame."  
  
****  
  
Ford had seen it all.  He'd watched the live feed from the back porch as Stan scared more than half of the first group of kids, feeling somewhat creepy for spying but entertained nonetheless.  He frowned when the two boys weren't fazed by what he thought was a brilliant use of melting wax.  He grew annoyed when the two kids didn't blink at Stan's portrayal of disembowelment involving sausages to mimic intestines.  His heart actually ached for for his brother when his last trick ended in  _him_  being scared off.  
  
But since then, he'd watched the monitor with hissed curse words, fuming as the kids tossed toilet paper all over Stan's decorations and their house and yard.  With arms and legs crossed, he could only watch from his nest of pillows as they turned back to the house and...  _Shitshitshit they're inside!  They came inside._  
  
He wanted to scream for Stan, to let someone know before they could harm any of the exhibits or steal anything from the gift shop.  He rolled forward onto his knees, squishing pillows below him and tossing them to the sides, reaching out for the panic button beyond the bars but, before he could, the screen caught his eye again.  He stared at it slack-jawed as the kids ran from the house, presumably screaming from their frantic pace and flailing arms.  Stan stepped through onto the porch in his boxers and shower cap and that was it.  Ford lost it.  He fell backwards, clutching his stomach and rolling in laughter.

 _Yes!  Got 'em!_  
  
He huffed until he caught his breath again and sat up, wiping his eyes.   _Sometimes,_  he thought,  _it seems so hopeless.  But there's still things that make it worth it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kh wklqnv brx vkrxog kdyh nloohg klp exw L wklqn kh vkrxog kdyh jrwwhq brx rxw ri rxu zdb.
> 
> Don't worry, Ford was technically unconscious when he was pepper sprayed so that was all Bill getting to suffer that one.


	16. Cash Wheel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan hates leaving Ford and the Shack, even if it's only for an hour to get groceries. But, he can't pass up an opportunity to make some fast cash to pay off Ford's medical bills. The only problem is, lingering memories keep resurfacing and demanding his attention. On the trip back home, it finally hits him why the word "please" bothers him so much and it only makes him feel worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: suicidal thoughts, mention of attempted suicide, ethical conundrums, Stan drank too much coffee on his road trip and there's not a rest stop nor service station in sight, somewhat reckless driving. 
> 
> There's art for the previous chapter [ here ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/172942466463/the-man-downstairs-chapter-15-mental)
> 
> Re: suicidal thoughts in this chapter (and the next) - I'm definitely using this as an outlet for some of my own struggles and experiences with them thanks to having a chronic illness, among other things. Next chapter will involve some more positive outlooks. As a disclaimer, this does not reflect everyone's experiences, just one of many possible perspectives.
> 
> (Notes on the last chapter, I'd thought about going full-cheesy-horror-story and having the power go out but I'm willing to bet Ford's cabin runs off of an alien generator or something, maybe even what he was using to power the portal. Also, I debated on having Ford be absolutely terrified when he saw Stan come into the kitchen carrying a sledge hammer but sheesh... he and Stan had both already been through enough so I figured he'd be too tired to even notice what Stan was carrying.)

 

Stan hated being away from home, even if it was only for an hour to pick up groceries.  The thought of being several hours away for nearly three days made him physically ill.  He needed to get back NOW.  Yesterday, preferably.  With anxiety tying knots in his chest, his foot pressed against the gas pedal until his land yacht zoomed past a teen in a compact convertible like she was riding a bicycle with a flat tire.  
  
Anxiety aside, at least he was mostly alert rather than falling asleep at the wheel, like he'd been in the past more times than he wanted to think about.  Despite his worries, he'd actually managed to get a bit of sleep at the motel before heading back out on the road.  He'd considered leaving the night before but, he'd already paid for the night and he'd promised the kids he'd be gone for 72 hours...  And...  Those were just excuses.  He knew his true reason, even if thinking about it too much made his stomach twist:  It wasn't just his life he risked every time he drove through a fog of exhaustion, it was his brother's too.  
  
With that catastrophic thought in mind, he forced his foot to ease off the gas, breaking the speed limit within a more reasonable range.  He slowed a bit more as he turned onto a narrow road that wound through towering trees, patches of sun and shade flickering over the windshield.  He cranked his window down, hoping the wind in his hair and the pine-scented breeze replacing pine-scented air freshener would help calm his twinging nerves.  
  
It didn't.  But, it didn't make it worse, either.  His chest pounded, just the same, as his thoughts swirled as if caught up in the wind.  
  
If anything had gone wrong while he was gone, he'd kick himself for setting this whole thing in motion.  He'd been on edge ever since Summerween, losing sleep to looping memories for nearly a week.  It seemed like everything from ads on TV to his own "zings" after cracking jokes were grating on his nerves.  Maybe he had been rough on Soos and Wendy lately.  Maybe he had gone too far by dressing Dipper up as a wolf boy exhibit to bring in more tourists.  But, it all came to a head three days ago when he'd fought with the kids, Soos, and Wendy over his policies and methods of running the Mystery Shack.  
  
Dipper had thought he could bring in real anomalies as attractions.  How could he tell the kid he'd already tried it and seen how badly it went?  At best, people didn't believe they were real and, at worst...  Well, he'd narrowly escaped a lawsuit with a reasonable settlement in the early days and he was just lucky that Lazy Susan seemed to like him enough to forgive him for that incident with her eye.  All of that aside, he was supposed to be protecting Dipper and Mabel from that stuff and here they wanted to go out and catch some of it for themselves!?  
  
Stan cursed himself for leaving Dipper to it and hoped that all he'd found, if anything, were barf fairies or leprecorns.   _If anything bad happened, Soos would have called me, right?_   He thought.   _At least he was there to look out for them, right?_  
  
And Soos...  Soos really was a good guy and all but,  _Sheesh_.  He'd wanted to be a mascot for the Shack.  Stan had actually considered it, he'd actually thought it wasn't a terrible idea...  Until the costume arrived.  There was no way he was letting Soos humiliate himself in that thing.  But, maybe he'd gone about saying "no" a little more harshly than he should have.  Maybe Mabel had been right to want him to try it and find out for himself.  Maybe he'd even ended up liking...  No.  Stan had known Soos since he was a kid and there was no way he'd be comfortable in that thing.  
  
_Hopefully Mabel didn't get too overzealous about making him wear it._  
  
Then there was Wendy.   _Yikes_.  Stan had hired her for a reason.  He saw entirely too much of himself in that girl and that didn't bode well with the lax policies Mabel was touting.  
  
He could already imagine how much paid time off she'd conned Mabel into giving her and how much she'd neglected customers in favor of slacking off with her friends.  He just hoped she hadn't pocketed too much of the cash in the register drawer.  Though, he had to admit, some part of him would be proud of her if it was over $50.  Of course he'd make her pay it back...  But he'd still be proud.  
  
As for Mabel...  Mabel  _was_  a pistol, alright.  She'd sworn up and down that she could run the place better than he could, that her politeness and kindness would win in the end.  He admired her positive spirit, he really did.  It made him loathe that those things had been snuffed out in himself decades ago.  In all honesty, part of him hoped she'd succeeded and it would prove his years of jaded cynicism wrong.  But, he'd lost all patience for listening to her trumpet methods he'd tried and failed at and eventually snapped, kidding with her that, "I'd make more money on vacation then you would, running this place!"  
  
And she'd called his bluff.  
  
Next thing he knew, his gambler side had taken over and the two forged a bet on who could make more money, Stan on vacation, or Mabel running the shack.  Even as they set their terms, he'd already worked it all out.  He'd already decided he'd make the drive down to Global Studios where he'd find some way to get onto the game show, Cash Wheel.  It was a pretty decent deal, really.  He'd have someone to watch the shack while he ran off to potentially make all his and Ford's money problems disappear.  Besides, he'd figured that with Mabel's tendency to give free gifts to customers, there was no way she could generate any profit after covering the cost of her proposed business tactics.  He'd assured himself she'd be lucky to break even while he had a chance at winning thousands.  He just didn't know how he'd explain where all the money went if he did win.  He'd guessed that was a bridge he'd cross if he had to.  Nothing said he would actually win, anyway, but even so, he'd hoped the worst case scenario was that he'd tie with Mabel...  And that she wouldn't think to deduct the cost of his vacation from his total.  
  
And so, they'd set their terms.  If Stan lost, he'd have to give up running the shack for the summer.   _Not a terrible idea,_ he'd thought _, if Mabel actually DOES do a better job at it.  At least I'd get a break for a while._  The part that had put him on edge, though, was when she mentioned he'd have to sing an apology song she'd written for him.  
  
Imagining how much glitter and dancing that would entail sent a shiver down his spine, more-so than the precariously placed melons in the bed of the pickup truck that just cut him off.  He slammed on the break his speed dropping to fifteen miles per hour.  Laying on the horn, he took advantage of a break in oncoming traffic, shook his fist through his window, and passed him.  
  
Settling back into the whir of tires against the road, he considered on his own wager.  He'd fumbled for something decent, and declared that if he won, Mabel would have to wear a loser shirt all summer.  In truth, he didn't care at all about the shirt.  He probably wouldn't even make her wear it after a day or two of rubbing it in her face.  All he'd cared about was that, if he won, he'd likely be able to pay off Ford's medical bills.  
  
Ford, though...  Ford had sworn he was fine with the idea and wished Stan luck.  He'd assured him that he had plenty of Moon Bars and Snazzy Crackers to make it through at least a week or two and that he could keep himself busy watching TV for a couple of days.  "And _,"_  he'd added, _"_ If Bill causes any major issues, there's always the panic button."  
  
If Ford did have to use it, Stan knew he could call Soos and instruct him on what to do.  He'd already told Soos long ago that if anything happened and he couldn't make it back to the shack for some reason, including hospitalization, imprisonment, and, the worst case scenario, death, he was to break into the file cabinet in his bedroom and follow the instructions in the folder labeled "emergency".  Stan just hoped everything was...  Not terrible since he hadn't heard the modified pager in his pocket buzz at all.  
  
_Besides,_  he tried to convince himself,  _This isn't the first time I've had to leave Ford and the shack for a few days._ At Ford's urging, he'd visited Shermy and the family on holidays, usually for Thanksgiving, at very least.  He'd visited their mom to help out when their dad was sick and again for the funeral.  He'd rushed off to Piedmont when he'd heard Dipper and Mabel were on their way into the world and spent a few days taking more photos than Shermy did.  
  
And every time, Stan would return to find Ford no worse off than usual, physically, but in serious need of cheering up after two to three days with nothing but granola bars, cracker sandwiches, and a dream demon to keep him company.  Luckily, Stan always returned with leftovers that were better than anything he could cook and a new batch of photos and stories to share.  This time, though, he wasn't sure if what he was returning with would be enough to pull his brother back from the edge.  
  
But things couldn't have gone too badly, he reasoned with himself, trying to ease the tension in his leg and the growing pressure of his foot against the gas pedal.  No one had called him at the motel nor the studio even though he'd made a point to call them and leave every number they might use to reach him.   _One of these days I gotta invest in one of those new computer phone things like the kids have,_  he thought, the idea layering over a sensation he'd been ignoring for the past half-hour.  He suddenly wished he'd passed on that coffee refill back at the Pancake House.  
  
_Ugh I gotta pull over!_ He swore he could feel his bladder sloshing and there wasn't a single rest stop, gas station, nor fast food restaurant in sight, just trees and bushes for miles.   _Oh well, not the first time you've had to use a bush._  
  
With a sigh of relief and the zip of his pants, he turned back to his car in time to see that watermelon-laden pickup putter past him.  He shook his fist and cursed at it as he climbed back into his car.  With oncoming traffic coming in a stream of vehicles that seemed like they were deliberately trying to prevent him from passing, he plodded along, hoping none of those melons would roll off from what had to be an illegal hauling configuration.  In the purgatory that was plodding along at no more than twenty miles per hour, he fidgeted with the stereo, searching for any distraction and finding little more than static, a station playing some kind of instrument bashing that nearly killed his ears, and a politics talk show that sounded a little too biased and boring for his liking.  He flicked it off and let his hand wander to the pager in his pocket.  His tongue stuck out and he wriggled in his seat, swerving a little in his lane as he struggled to dislodge it.  
  
He glanced at it to find the little green screen displaying nothing more than the date and time.  No messages.  No news was good news, right?  Well, no.  Not really.  Ford would only send him a message if he was in real danger, having a heart attack or something.  He could be crumpled on the floor bruised and bleeding and still wouldn't hit the panic button if he thought he'd survive without help.  Even Bill respected it as an emergency only device.  If he wanted Ford alive, Stan had warned that he'd better not mess with that button so he'd know it was a real emergency if his beeper buzzed.  Besides, if the button was pressed, it would ask for a voice message...  Although, thinking back on it, the one time his pocket had buzzed, it _was_ Bill who had left the message.  
  
It was back in 1998, shortly after he'd gotten the kooky guy in the dump to alter his pager into something that could give him a voice message sent from a homemade transmitter.  He'd just finished a museum tour when his pocket vibrated and his heart fell to his feet.  He ducked into the living room to listen to the message, groaning, at first, when Bill's nasal whine came through, "Is this thing working?  Hey, Fez-head.  You might want to get down here.  Sixer's bent on 'putting you both out of your misery,' his words, not mine."  
  
He'd never shoved customers out of the gift shop so fast in his life.  
  
That had been the beginning of their darkest years.  He'd found out that Bill had likely prevented his brother from attempting suicide that day, a thought that left him with feelings he could barely untangle in order to understand.  Apparently, Ford had gotten the idea that he could set both himself and Stan free that way.  Apparently, he'd thought it would let Stan have a better life.  Apparently, he'd grown tired of living like he was.  Stan hated that his twin was only half-wrong, at least, as far as he could tell without knowing how Ford felt firsthand.  He knew his own life wouldn't be better without his brother but, he didn't know what he could do to help make Ford's life any better.  Stan didn't want to be "set free" and he hated that Ford thought of it that way but, if Ford did want it, who was he to blame him?  But did he really want it?  One thing Stan _did_ know firsthand was how tricky thoughts like that really could be.  One second you don't want to keep going like this anymore, the next, self-preservation kicks in and you're wrestling a knife from someone's hand or digging in a dumpster for food to save whatever life you do have.  Or, at least, that was his experience.  Either way, the last thing he wanted was for his brother to feel like he was holding him back and for those feelings to color his outlook.  
  
Stan had tried to tell him.  He'd tried to convince Ford that he was glad to have him in his life.  He'd asked what he could do to make things better.  He outright called himself selfish because he wanted to keep trying, because he didn't want to lose him, because he felt like they shouldn't give up.  He wished he could say that giving up would be letting Bill win but he honestly didn't know if there was any truth to that.  For once, he and the demon seemed to be on the same side, both wanting Ford to survive, but for opposing reasons.  In the end, Ford remained huddled in the corner asking him to "Just go.  Please." like he always did when he didn't want to break down in front of-  
  
"THAT'S IT!"  
  
Stan nearly slammed on the breaks as the realization hit him.  He swerved to the left and corrected his course just in time to see what he'd dubbed the melon-mobile turn off and head down a winding road toward the city.  With his lane clear ahead, his foot pressed against the gas pedal, the car's speed matching that of his thoughts.  
  
_That's why I hate that word so much!  That's why it tastes like rotten fish on my tongue.  Ford always says "please" to make me go away when I want to be there for him the most!  But, if he doesn't want me there, it's not up to me to force it.  I know I'd prefer someone being there in times like that but...  He's not me.  But what if he does want someone there and just dosen't want to be any trouble to me?  It wouldn't be the first time..._  
  
Stan's blood ran cold as the words, "You should have pulled the trigger," repeated in his mind.  
  
_Damn it.  DAMN IT!  Does he still feel like that?  I thought things got better when the kids were born.  He was doing well, wanting to meet them someday.  And he seemed happy anytime I brought home photos of them...  But is it...  Has it all just been a show?  Is he acting like he's alright for my sake?  Is that why this is all coming back to me?  Because now he's lost that eye and he's been trying so hard to be alright with it and I know damn well he's not..._  
  
At that moment, as his car rumbled past the Welcome to Gravity Falls sign, he swore he'd have a talk with Ford about everything.  
  
But, before he could do that, he had to figure out what he was going to tell the kids about his so-called vacation.  Had they even seen him on Cash Wheel?  And how had they done with things at the shack?  
  
Everything looked like it was in place as he drove up the winding road towards the shack.  Customers wandered out of the gift shop with smiles on their faces and bags in their hands.  He couldn't see any damage anywhere and, if anything, it looked like Soos had been busy taking care of some of the repairs.  Maybe Mabel really  _had_ done a better job...  
  
Well, there was only one way to find out and, win or lose, he was going to make a show out of it.  His knees cracked as he lifted himself from the car seat with a groan.  He stretched his rubbery legs and smoothed out his tropical shirt then set his oversized timer to buzz in two minutes, just enough time to grab his bag and make it to the door.  
  
He paused at the gift shop door, pressing his ear against it until he heard the kids' voices inside.  Satisfied that his entrance would be a grand one, he slammed the door open as the timer reached zero.  With an over-exaggerated malicious grin, and the buzz of the timer, he announced, "Tick-tock! Time's up, kids!"  
  
He found them huddled around the cash register counting wads of money.  His heart sank as he wondered if they had done better than he'd ever imagined.  Soos was actually wearing that dumb question mark costume and Wendy was actually there helping!  _What the heck?_  
  
But, the way his fez tipped to the side on Mabel's head when she gasped, "oh no!" told him there was more to the story.  
  
And wait, was Dipper actually wearing a suit?  What on Earth happened to get the kid to actually comb his hair?  "Nice to see you learned how to dress while I was gone," he remarked, not completely joking as he pried for clues.  He had to admit the kid looked pretty decent when he bothered to shower and put on some clean clothes.  Not that he could blame him for his usual unkempt state.  Ma had complained about Ford's and his own hygiene on a regular basis when they were his age.  
  
His next hint came when Mabel's downtrodden voice asked, "How much did you beat us by?"  
  
From that, he could assume that they knew he was up to something but he still couldn't be sure if they saw him on the game show at all or not.  Either way, he could deduce that they hadn't seen the outcome.  Partly in an effort to gauge their reactions, he blurted, "I won $300,000!"  When their jaws dropped in shock and defeat, he was certain they hadn't actually seen it for themselves.  "And then," he continued, spinning a story of his success on the game show and how the final word, the word "please" had defeated him.  "Apparently that word  _can_  make you money," he admitted.

"So, wait," Dipper pondered, tapping his chin, "If you lost everything, then that means...Mabel! You won!"  

A simultaneous cheer came from Wendy, Soos, Dipper, and Mabel as they threw their arms in the air in triumph.

 

 

 

"We did it!"

Stan couldn't help but wonder if they were purely happy to have won...  Or if he'd really been so terrible to them lately that they were glad to see him lose, that they disliked him that much...

"Wait," Soos asked, "What did we win again?"

"Well, according to our bet," Stan answered, unsure if he was ready to relinquish control, even if Mabel had done a decent job of running things while he was gone.  But, like it or not, it was the terms he'd agreed to.  Like it or not, they didn't seem to want him as their boss anymore.  He hadn't thought that part through too well, had he?  _Oh well_ , He tried to reassure himself,  _I guess it just means I'll have a summer vacation for a change.  Too bad Ford couldn't join me for some fishing...  But,_ he offered himself as a consolation, _if the kids can do this, maybe that means they can help out when we find out how to keep Bill out of Ford's head and he CAN join me..._ With a sigh, he conceded, "I guess Mabel's the new boss?"

Shouts of, "No! No! Don't do that!" surrounded him as Wendy, Soos, Dipper, and Mabel crowded around, almost as if they'd...  Missed him?  Or maybe...  Cared, even?

"Huh?" He said, confusion knotting inside him.  Did they really have that rough of a time?  What exactly happened while he was gone?  Hundreds of questions sparked in his mind but all he could manage to ask was, "What?" 

"Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, handing him his Fez back, "I had no idea how hard it was being boss. This place was cuckoo bananas until I started barking orders at people like you."

_So her way didn't work out after all.  Interesting._   But, Stan wondered if, perhaps, his way was still a little harsh.  Maybe a bit of the Mabel difference was what this place needed.  But only a little, like the dash of cayenne pepper his nacho recipe had needed.  "Yeah," he said, bending down to pull the kids into a hug he sorely craved, "Well, I gotta admit, It's kind of nice to be back, ya know?"  As if realizing his cynical shields were cracking, he pushed them away and added, "Okay, okay, that's enough, get offa me!"  He stood and looked to Soos, stifling a laugh at the handyman's exposed limbs and underwear around the giant foam question mark costume.  He patted Wendy on the back and said, as if ready to offer some sentimental insight, "And Soos, Wendy," his voice shifted to a bark sending them jogging out the door.  "Get to work!  Ahem.  Please.  Uhh!" he groaned, wrapping an arm around his stomach.  "Still hurts."

"Mabel," Dipper said, "Didn't your agreement say something about Stan having to do some kind of apology dance if he lost?"

_Oh no.  No no no no no._ He took a step back, stuttering, "N-no.  No, it didn't." _They remembered.  Of course they did_. _This is it...  You knew this was coming when you decided to tell them you lost...  Oh boy, how bad is this gonna be?_

"Actually, yeah," Mabel said, flipping through a notepad.  "I think I have it in my notes here."    
_  
A notepad,_ Stan thought.   _Of course.  Leave it to her to have a notepad and actually use it keep notes on things people said.  Guess she's gotta keep tabs in order to fill out that scrapbook of hers._ Despite the evidence and the four-against-one odds, he protested, "No!  That never happened!"

Wendy peeked back in just long enough to laugh and pile on, "I'll get the camera!"

"Alright," Stan grumbled, "let me just..."

With no plans on finishing that sentence, he ran away leaving Mabel calling after him, "Grunkle Stan!"

Maybe he could at least use a proper bathroom and splash some water on his face before the consequences caught up with him.

****

As soon as he could get away, Stan rushed down to the basement, his slippers flip-flopping like his stomach with every step.  He paused outside Ford's door, his panic easing at the whoosh of the toilet flushing and the trickle of water down the drain.   _If he's using the bathroom, it means he can move and he's alive, right?_  Uncertain of whether Ford had also showered or bothered to put on pants yet, he knocked, calling out, "Ford?  You decent?"

"Yes, come on in," the answer came back, a little more cheerfully that he'd expected.

Stan chuckled to himself over the thought that Ford hated anyone seeing him in his Star Battles or galaxy print boxers while he showed up at his door nearly every day in his own striped ones.  His chuckle was abruptly silenced by his own widening eyes as Ford galloped to the bars, tripping over a pillow his blind eye had hidden from his view and stumbling forward.  Stan reached out as if to catch him but, he caught himself first, hands wrapped around the bars.

He looked up with a sloppy grin, a chin full of stubble, and only one new visible bruise.  "Congratulations!  Stanley," he cheered, "That was amazing!  I told you you could do it and you did!  You won!  Wait," he added, squinting at him, "Why is there so much glitter in your hair...  and all over your arms?"

"Heh," he huffed, "It's 'cause of something called the Stan Wrong Song."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drbpp F mrpe Yoxfkfxz x ifqqib qll cxo pljbqfjbp. Texq zxk F pxv? Fq'p crk ql txqze efj qbbqbo lk qeb badb.
> 
> ~Yeah... Stan totally lied to the kids. How was he going to explain where all that money he won went? And, yup, that does mean that he broke down and used the word "Please".
> 
> ~Next chapter will dive more into Ford's mental state and Stan's concerns about him.
> 
> ~Previous end note codes deciphered [ here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e).


	17. Holding Onto Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Sniff sniff* What is that? It smells like... Emotions.
> 
> Stan and Ford's communication skills with each other have improved immensely over the years but they weren't always stellar... Or existent at all, and there are dark times they've never revisited. Stan decides it's time to discuss a few things and try to understand exactly what was going on in an attempt to prevent Ford's history of suicidal thoughts from repeating itself. Through it all, the brothers find that there's still hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Holy crap they're actually talking about important things. Suicidal thoughts, mention of attempted suicide, depression, demonic possession, minor cuts and puncture wounds, mental torture, mental manipulation, minor physical torture, the Stangst is strong in this one but, hoo boy so is the fluff. Also, guys... Drinking while on certain medications is contraindicated. So er, bad decisions and drinking.
> 
> ~When Ford mentions "having a family" it's up to reader interpretation on exactly what that means as far as his or Stan's preferences for a spouse, what type of relationship they'd have (romantic, platonic, etc), and if any children would be biological or adopted.
> 
> ~Thank you so much to everyone who has commented, reblogged posts, liked or added kudos and to everyone who has let me babble to them about this and offered suggestions and help! I appreciate it and it has all been helpful in formulating the continuation of this fic. Even things mentioned in comments have sparked (sometimes unrelated but apparently that's how my brain works) ideas so this truly is a community fic and you've all helped make it what it is.  
> Thank you <3!

"The Stan what, now?"  Ford asked, leaning forward, his forearms draped over a horizontal bar covered in foam, stuffing, and a patchwork of fabric between the equally padded vertical bars keeping the world, his brother, and himself safe from the demon in his head.    
  
"The Stan wrong song," Stan explained, lowering his head and ruffling his hair, raining rosy-tinted glitter onto the carpet below.  "It was the song and dance Mabel made me do for losing our bet."  His back cracked, his hands pressing against it for support as he settled into his typical slouch.  The grow light in the corner, keeping Philly, Rosy and Ford's other photosynthetic friends alive, glinted across more glitter, scattered throughout the graying hair on Stan's arms and plastered to his skin below.  
  
Ford bit his lower lip to suppress a laugh, snorting despite it, shoulders and chest twitching until he let it out.  "You look like a disco ball!"  
  
Stan's brows flattened as he huffed something like a laugh.  With a sarcastic smile, he grumbled, "Glad everyone else is gettin' such a kick outta this."  
  
"Tell me there's video footage of this," he implored, wheezing a little.  
  
"Very funny, Ford," Stan answered, rolling his eyes.  With a gravely sigh he admitted, "I bet it will be the first thing Mabel will want to show you when you two meet."  
  
"Wait wait wait," Ford interrupted, his expression sinking into confusion.  "You won on Cash Wheel.  I saw you."  
  
"Sure did," Stan answered, chin jutting out in something that resembled pride, his thumbs threading behind the straps of his tank top.  
  
"And you still lost the bet?"   
  
"Uh...  Yeah," Stan's shoulders sagged, the grow light behind him flickering off for the night as if it consciously decided to add emphasis to his mood's deflation.  
  
Ford's brow furrowed in a mix of concern and befuddlement as he asked, "What, exactly, did I miss?  The surveillance monitor was still set to the back porch so I couldn't see what was going on around the gift shop.  It must have been ridiculously busy for them to make even more money than..."  
  
"They didn't," Stan interrupted,  his hands tucked into his pockets while his slippers ruffled through the carpet's crushed pile.  
  
"Stanley, you didn't," Ford scolded, finally catching on.  
  
"I did," he said with a sigh, his shoulders scrunched up on either side of his face.  
  
"You told them you lost?!  Why?"  Ford asked, his hands settling in a loose grip around the bars.  
  
"Well, on the way home I was thinking I could tell them I won and rub it in their faces a bit," he said with a chuckle, leaning against the storage trunk until he nearly sat upon it.  "I mean, there was more'n enough to cover the medical bills but, I think we need the rest as a back-up," Stan explained, mulling over just how much he was willing to add onto that at the moment.  
  
He'd planned on mentioning that he'd like to use some of the winnings to find a therapist for Ford...  And, admittedly, himself.  But, that would likely mean bringing up everything he'd worried over since his drive back home, no - since the night of Summerween.  Though he still fully intended on discussing it at some point, he'd lost confidence in thinking that now was the time.  Ford seemed to be in a fair state of mind and he didn't want to bring him down.  Would it really hurt to wait a little longer?  Probably not.  As long as he mentioned it sometime before Ford's follow-up visit with Dr. Braum, he could still find out if he'd be alright with asking if she knew of anyone who could help them.  
  
Instead, he reasoned, as much to himself as to his brother, "Half of what I won's probably gotta go to taxes anyway.  And it's not the worst lie I've ever told, right?  And the kids probably got more of a kick out of humiliating me than they would have if I told them I won but had to use the money to pay off loans.  And I did buy them and their friends a bunch of pizza for dinner tonight with some of the winnings."  He approached the bars, his stomach sinking as Ford instinctively moved to back away then settled back into place when Stan stopped within a safe distance away from his reach.  "Speaking of," he continued, trying to keep things positive for the moment, "You gotta be starving for some real food.  Want me to cook up something or you want some of the pizza?  I saved some veggie lovers for you."  
  
"Pizza sounds good, thanks" he said, his smile faltering almost visibly, "Did you get any salad with it?"  
  
"Yeah.  I'll heat some slices up for you and grab one of the salad bowls.  Back in a bit."   _Maybe we'll talk about things then,_  Stan thought.  
  
****  
  
They didn't.  
  
Stan returned, as promised, with stuffed crust pizza, and a paper bowl filled with slightly wilted salad greens.  As usual, they shared a meal but, this time, they toasted to Stan's triumph with soda-filled paper cups.  Stan focused their conversation mostly on the tale of how some melodramatic antics got him onto the game show despite the serious subjects still nagging at the forefront of his mind, growing frustrated with his refusal to release them.  
  
Things were going far too well to bring up troubling topics, Stan told himself.  Ford seemed genuinely alright, laughing and joking back.  He even accepted Stan's offer to break out the electric razor and clean up his overgrown stubble and, for once, Bill left them to it without a hint of interference.  
  
Yet, there was one thing which bordered on dark territory that Stan needed to know- how Ford's eye was doing.  But, Ford seemed calm about the question.  He mentioned that the pain was subsiding and he was able to watch TV on and off without his good eye straining too much, and even when it did, he could just close it and listen.  When Stan asked if he could lift his medical patch to check for any problems, he simply nodded and allowed it with no resistance.  
  
He examined it carefully, glad to see for himself that even though the lid remained stitched closed, mostly to prevent Bill from causing any further damage, the bruising had almost completely faded.  There were no signs of infection, nor any signs that Bill had managed to aggravate it.  Stan kept things positive, remarking that it looked like it was healing well, that he'd have a proper prosthetic in no time, and that, in the meantime, he'd find Ford a patch that would make him "look real- what do the kids call it?  Badass?"  
  
Ford laughed and thanked him then went on to assure him he'd taken the supplements, painkillers, and medications Stan had left in the daily dose containers in the bathroom while he was gone.  He even mentioned that his new prescription was still keeping the nightmares at bay.  He laughed and said he'd only had one dream lately and, "it figures, all I can remember of it was that I was relaxing in that old armchair we had back in the eighties, watching Xolotl swim around in the aquarium and thinking it probably needed to be cleaned.  How's he doing anyway?  I miss him."   
  
Stan answered that the axolotl still seemed spry as ever and was enjoying the company of Mabel's lobster friend.  He added that he'd take Ford's dream as a hint to clean the tank tomorrow.  Otherwise, speaking of dreams and sleep seemed like a useful cue for Stan to leave things well enough alone for the night.  "Well," he suggested, "maybe we should both get some sleep, then."  They exchanged goodnight sentiments and he headed upstairs in search of some rest.  Tomorrow was another day.  He'd gather his thoughts and talk to Ford about everything after a good night's sleep, comfortable in the worn out crater of his own bed, surrounded by the soapy scent of GeneriCuddle fabric softener and the familiar pilling of his jersey sheets.    
  
Except, he couldn't sleep.  He'd tried everything from deep breathing, laying on his rumpled sheets in the dark, to poking away under the bedside table lamp's light at one of those Sudoku puzzles Ford liked to work on during those slightly less stressful, tourist-free weeks in the winter; those weeks when Stan could visit him whenever Bill allowed it.  At one point, he'd even gone as far as to pull out the typewriter his brother had rescued from the family pawn shop, setting it up on a pile of cardboard boxes to type up some of the scrawled notes he'd taken while Ford spun stories of his imagined worlds and the man traveling through them.  (It was a pretty decent story, he thought.  One that probably would make an interesting novel for people who enjoyed that sort of thing.)  
  
He hated to admit it, but, something about the clunk of slamming each key down and the click of the bars usually felt satisfying, as if they could pacify the stirring beasts in his mind.  But this time, he hated that it wasn't working.  
  
He hated that he could still smell the smoke from the cigar he'd puffed at on the porch an hour ago clinging to his hair and shirt.  He hated that he'd broken down and lit one at all when he promised himself and Dipper and Mabel's parents that he'd swear off of them for the summer.  He hated the taste of cheep beer lingering on his tongue, beer that had done nothing to ease his anxieties nor sedate old memories clawing at their cages.  But mostly, he hated that they'd reawakened at all, that even after being away for a few days, the beasts he'd provoked on Summerween were growing restless, feeding on his anxieties and worries.   
  
_He tried to kill me._  
  
Maybe it happened decades ago and maybe he thought he was over it but, the fact remained, they'd never talked about what ACTUALLY happened.  Sure, he'd talked Ford down out of panic attacks over it.  Sure, Ford had done the same for him and apologized profusely.  And sure, Stan had said he understood.  But, the truth was, he didn't.  Not really.  Of course he'd accepted Ford's apology and forgiven him.  Of course he understood the part where Bill had done something to Ford's mind to make him act the way he did...  But...  What, exactly?  And, why did Ford hesitate to pull the trigger?  And  _damnit_ , why didn't he ever seem bothered that...  
  
_I tried to kill him._  
  
With that thought, he tip-toed down the stairs using the handrail to guide him through the dark.  He skipped the broken step near the bottom, careful to avoid the boards which creaked the worst, and crept into the kitchen.  Fumbling with his massive key clip, he unlocked the liquor cabinet to see what was left from mixing the punch for their supposed birthday party.   _Not much_ , he grumbled to himself picking up the only unopened offering, a bottle of Second Mate's spiced rum.  
  
He grabbed a few paper cups and some sodas from the fridge, figuring it was better than nothing, and navigated through the living room under the blue glow from the aquarium housing Ford's old friend.   _How is that little guy even still alive anyway?_ Stan wondered.  Even Ford didn't know.  All either of them knew was that Ford had found him in the woods one day, far from his natural habitat and looking pretty rough.  He'd brought him home, hoping he could give him a decent life there.  He'd thought he might have been someone's pet that was unceremoniously dumped in a puddle and left to die but, more and more, they were both beginning to wonder if this was yet another anomaly this town had to offer.  "Wouldn't it be great," Stan once joked, "If Ponce-de-Whatever was wrong and the fountain of youth is actually here and that little guy got a dose of immortality from it or something?"  
  
Ford had laughed and agreed, saying that skepticism had not served him well in the past and after all he'd seen in this town, he was ready to believe anything was possible.  
  
Stan shook his head, dispersing the fog of fantasy and continued onward, through the door emblazoned with an employees only sign and into the shadow-strewn gift shop.  Once beyond the door hidden behind the snack machine, his robe billowed around him, slippers flopping against his feet, soda cans patting his thighs through his pockets, as he sped to the basement to see if his brother might, by any chance, still be awake.  He arrived at the door, hearing no sound beyond but assuming the lines of amber light surrounding it meant Ford hadn't gone to sleep yet.  
  
He knocked lightly, just in case, and asked in a near-whisper, "Ford, you still awake?"  
  
"Yes, come on in," his answer muffled through the door.  Stan eased it open to the smell of sandalwood soap and a questioning eye framed by unruly wet hair standing in the bathroom doorway.  Ford had already changed into the clean pajama pants Stan had brought down earlier but still held a black t-shit, his glasses, and his medical patch between his hands.  Stan winced at the spattering of recent bruises and the scars slashing bald spots through graying hair on his arms and chest as he wriggled the shirt over his head.  He slipped the medical patch over his eye, positioning the two sets of straps around his ears and asked, "Is everything alright?"  
  
"Ha, yeah.  Just thinking about what you said the other day about whether or not we still look anything like each other.  One thing's for sure, we're still equally as hairy as ever," he kidded.  
  
"Ha, I suppose you're right," Ford joked back, stretching the strap of his glasses over his head and adjusting the lens over his good eye.  His smile sagged as he spotted the booze bottle in his brother's hand.  "Everything isn't alright...  is it?"  
  
Stan shook his head and answered, "I think we both know it's not.  You alright to stay up a bit longer?"  
  
"Of course," concern tinted his reply as he closed the bathroom door.  He approached the bars carefully, easing into a cross-legged position then passing Stan's usual floor pillow through to him.  "If whatever this is about requires that much rum, I imagine you'll want to sit for a while...  Do you even like rum?"  
  
"It's not bad in a pinch," Stan said with a shrug.  He eased himself down onto the pillow, his legs giving out at the last second landing him onto it with a jolt to his spine.  Maybe he'd have to consider bringing an armchair down whether he liked it or not.  He just never felt comfortable with the idea of sitting above his brother, enjoying a comfort he couldn't have right in front of him.  
  
He squirmed a bit until he found some form of comfort between the pillow's balled up stuffing, cracked open the bottle, and continued, "Anyway, I don't plan on finishing the bottle or nothin', just...  Having some to take the edge off.  I brought a cup in case you want some.  Didn't know for sure, what with the meds and all."  
  
"Thank you but no thanks.  I'd better not."  
  
"Remember that when you grab my cup later," Stan said, pouring half a cup of soda then adding rum nearly to the brim.  He tipped the soda can toward his brother and asked, "Soda?"  
  
"That does sound good, thank you," he said, reaching out for the cup offered to him slowly, still struggling to gauge his monocular perspective.  
  
The twins sipped at their drinks in silence for a moment, their fingers tapping idly around pastel striped paper.  Finally, Stan found a few appropriate words and spoke up, "So...  We've gotten a lot better at actually talking about things over the years, right?"  
  
"Indeed."    
  
"But, we were shit at it, for a long time,  weren't we?" he said, staring into his glass and wishing it wasn't too full to swirl around without spilling but equally opposed to guzzling it down too quickly.  He glanced up, meeting Ford's gaze and added, "Still are at some things, right?"  
  
"Spectacularly so, yes," he nodded, breaking eye contact to stare into the fizzing contents of his own cup.  
  
"Well, I think there's some pretty huge things that we kinda skipped talking about and that we still are.  I ain't exactly happy about bringin' it up and I know you're not gonna be...  But, it's been on my mind for a couple 'a days now and I think...  I gotta understand it all."  
  
"Alright..." Trepidation dragged through the single word.  Ford sipped at his soda, his shoulders tensing as he wondered exactly which of the unpleasant things from their past Stan wanted to address, knowing there was likely more than one, and hating that he was absolutely right that they needed to clear away decades worth of muck.  
  
Stan breathed deeply, the million ways he'd thought of to breach the topic suddenly scattering like minnows at the plop of a lure in their pond.  But still, he managed to catch one.    
  
"That day," Stan began, his heart fluttering as he set down his drink, "after we took a sledgehammer to the portal..."  
  
Ford's head jerked up, his eye peeled open, muscles suddenly frozen stiff, hand clenched around his cup until it nearly crumpled in his grasp.  Somehow, he found the good sense to put it down beyond the bars, nearly slamming it straight into one and almost tipping it over before his legs edged him back and away.   
  
"It's alright." Stan blurted, his hand reaching through and clapping on Ford's upper arm, trying to reassure him.  "I know you don't hate me.  I know Bill did somethin' to yer head to make you do what you did."  
  
"But I still did it!" He blurted, feet pushing against pillows in the effort to scramble away.  "That was me.  I...  Stanley, I tried to kill you!"  His hands clutched at the padded ground his heart racing, pounding against his ribs and through his limbs.  
  
"Yeah, and I tried to kill you, too," Stan reminded him, struggling to look him in the eye, his hand giving Ford's arm a light squeeze.  His brows furrowed, wrinkles deepening around his eyes as he added, "and you told me I should have done it."  
  
Ford froze, his limbs falling limp, mouth opened as if to gasp before his head lowered to his chest.  
  
Stan released his arm, his shoulders drooping as he asked, "You still think that, don't you?"  
  
Ford sagged forward, collecting a lumpy bed pillow into his arms.  Without lifting his gaze, his husky whisper replied, "Sometimes.  Yes."  At the sound of a single deep breath, Ford looked up, snapping, "But I won't act on it!  It's just...  Difficult sometimes.  I have to think things through to set my thoughts back on track again."  
  
"But," Stan tilted his like a curious cat, "you...  can do that now?"  
  
"Mostly...  yes," Ford answered, scooting himself closer to the bars again.  "I'm sure the medications help...  But sometimes...  I do still think it."  He reached through the bars, purposely grabbing Stan's cup instead of his and draining half of it down his throat.  He wiped his lips and stared into the cup as he added, "At least you could have lived a better life-"  
  
"We've been over this part, Stan interrupted, reaching through the bars to steal his cup back.  "No.  I wouldn't have.  I ain't even gonna talk about the guilt that'd be driving me to drink...  Er...  More than this," he said, nodding down to his hands as they refilled the cup with rum, "but even without that, no.  Maybe I'd have the Shack just the same but who's to say I'd even still be alive right now?"  
  
Ford nodded, watching Stan add rum to his own cup then scooping it up.  It was true that they'd begun this conversation countless times and, if they managed to get this far, this was about the point where it usually trailed off because Ford always wanted to say he wished he wasn't such a burden on Stan and they'd end up derailing the subject into jokes about the words Bill had rearranged in Ford's head over the years.  Ever since the first time the words "sea otter" emerged instead of "burden" and Stan had to get out a dictionary to help him remember right, Stan would joke about it.  Ford knew it was his way of trying to lighten things, trying to make him feel better about the whole situation, swapped words, suicidal thoughts, and all, and Ford would play along.  Sometimes they even continued to use the wrong words to throw it back in Bill's face, creating their own shared language like they had when they were kids.  
  
Sometimes, Ford would joke back about the time Bill replaced the word "research" with "tatting".  He wasn't even sure how he knew what tatting was in order for Bill to dredge it out of his mind (though, he guessed he'd picked it up while working in the pawn shop) but it ended up being a thing he learned to do in the earlier years, back when Bill could only possess him in his sleep, back when he'd requested to be locked up at almost all times merely as a precaution for if he inadvertently fell asleep.  
  
Yes, this was the part where Stan usually gave him a shred of reassurance by telling him that the largest doily he'd made was still on the dinosaur skull in the living room and Ford would feign some sort of contentment and they'd move on.  But, he didn't want his greatest contribution to Stan's life, to the outside world in general, to be tatting a doily for the living room-- something he couldn't even do anymore without Stan's supervision.  Even more, he hated that Bill could make him doubt himself to the point of fearing his own speech, fearing that the wrong words would come out and he'd make a fool of himself again.  Though, it wasn't that he minded being corrected, not really.  He'd asked Stan to please do so whenever it happened.  Better to be reeducated than keep making the mistake, he thought, even if it chipped away at whatever was left of his pride.  
  
No, it wasn't that.  What scared him was that he could hurt someone.  What if the next time he tried to say "I'm sorry" it came out as "Fuck you"?  He hoped Stan knew.  He hoped he knew he never wanted to hurt him again.  
  
"I know how this conversation usually goes," Stan said, as if he could see Ford's thoughts scrolling across his forehead, "We joke around and avoid talking about things."  
  
"...Right."  
  
"Well...  I don't want to do that this time.  Go ahead..." Stan said, steadying himself with another sip of his drink, "Say what I already know is coming next."  
  
Ford followed Stan's lead, using his drink as an excuse to think for a moment.  Maybe it would be helpful to rephrase things this time.  "I wish," he paused, sucking in a deep breath, "I wish I wasn't so useless."  
  
Somehow that hurt Stan more than him thinking he was a burden.  Maybe because it was something about Ford that had never changed.  He always judged himself on if he was doing something useful to others and the world.  He could never see himself as valuable for simply living.  Maybe it hurt because Stan, himself, struggled with the same thoughts, fearing that nothing he did was worthwhile, feeling that being here for Ford might be the only worthwhile thing he could do, then knowing that Ford felt just as worthless, if not more-so, and wondering if everything he was doing meant anything at all.  
  
After a silent and motionless pause, he asked, "Ford, "Do you resent me for keeping you here?  For...  keeping you alive?"  
  
"No!" the answer blurted out immediately though the following explanation needed the fuel of another drink.  "I...  I'm grateful for it.  I just...  feel horrible because you give up so much to do it."  
  
"Give up?"  
  
Ford tipped his cup back, the remainder of his drink draining down his throat.  He set his cup down beyond the bars and continued, "Yes.  You work all the time to support us and pay for my medical bills.  You spend most of your free time down here keeping me company. You stay here instead of traveling and only visit family on major holidays for a day or two, and I know, I know, you and I are family too and that's what family should do for each other but-"  
  
"I'm gonna stop you right there," Stan interrupted, opening a second soda can and refilling Ford's cup again, careful to add a lot less rum.  "You aren't making a convincing argument.  Firstly, I ain't here because of some family obligation bullshit," he explained, handing Ford his cup, "Yeah, I do think that's what family does for each other but there's limits.  Honestly, when dad got sick, the only reason I went back home to help out was because ma needed it.  If it had just been him...  I'm not sure if I would have gone."  
  
"You would have..." Ford said with a shake of his head and a knowing grin.  It slipped back to a frown as he considered that he was the one who probably wouldn't have, even if he hadn't been stuck in his own basement at the time.  
  
"Yeah.  You're probably right," Stan conceded, refilling his own drink with considerably less rum as well.  "But anyway, I'm not here because I feel obligated."  
  
"I hate that I..." Ford paused, wincing at himself, trying to stomp down his hatred for who he used to be, "I didn't do the same for you."  
  
"How could you have?" Stan asked as if shrugging the matter off, "It's not exactly like I told anyone what happened after dad kicked me out."  
  
"I saw your commercials sometimes.  I kind of thought you were doing better than any of us and didn't blame you for not coming back home," Ford said.  He'd talked to Stan about that part before, back when he'd been defensive of his actions but, he'd never added on the part even he hated thinking of himself.  "If I had known, though," his voice faltered as he admitted, "I'm honestly not sure what I would have felt or done."  His breath caught, choking over his next words, "I don't know if I would have helped you like you've done for me."  
  
Stan had imagined as much but it still hurt to hear it.  He wasn't exactly proud of himself back in those days either, though.  The feelings fueling him at the time would likely hurt Ford no less.  "I think that's a different thing," he reasoned.  "You were pissed off at me.  Like I was pissed off at dad for kicking me out and at you and Ma for not stopping him.  But...  I get that you were probably as scared of him as I was."  With those words he had to stop for a moment.  He looked down at his cup, setting it on the floor carefully then picking up the rum bottle to drink straight from it.  By the time he looked back to Ford, he was holding out his own empty cup.  Stan didn't bother adding soda this time.  
  
"You were angry at me," he continued, "So, I kinda get it if you wouldn't have helped me.  I-" His head swiveled slowly back and forth as if it would help dislodge the words from his throat, "I can't say guilt didn't play a part in me coming here when you asked for it.  But, it's not why I stayed.  I stayed...  I guess because I'm selfish and hoped we could be friends again like when we were kids.  Maybe I can put one over on people and maybe I got some kinda charisma or whatever you wanna call it but, when it comes to social things, heh, you say you're bad with them but, know what?  I stink at it too."  He sighed, breathing deeply, searching for the scents of mint and rosemary from the planter in the corner to mask the bubble of soda and burn of rum.  His arms tingled, a numbness lapping at the forefront of his mind as he continued, "At least this way, I always got one friend I can count on who gets it.  Who gets...  me.  You keep me company as much as I do for you."  
  
Ford's lips parted as if to reply but nothing emerged.  Instead, a light smile lifted his lips before he managed the words, "We may not have made many friends, but at least we had...  Have each other."  
  
"Damn straight," Stan said, shifting on his pillow to find a less flattened spot.  He grimaced as he unfolded his legs, his feet imprinted with reddened marks from the carpet below.  "Anyway," he moved on to prove another of Ford's points moot, "As far as working, I'd have to do that even to support myself and, thanks to you, I got a place to do it where I actually enjoy myself, where you help me and we actually work together.  Maybe it's selfish again, but, I always hoped we'd work together like this," he admitted.  "'Sides, I got a stable life now thanks to it all.  And, don't think you're the one keeping me 'stuck' here," he added, lifting his cup and extending his finger to point at Ford, "I've traveled a fair amount.  Didn't do so well.  And I don't want to do it alone ever again.  If I travel, I want it to be like we dreamed of as kids.  And, we're gonna do it someday.  We know there's a way to keep that monster out of your head and we will figure it out."  
  
"What...  what if there isn't?" Ford asked, his elbows leaning on the pillow in his lap as his hands swirled his drink.  "What if he's making me believe there is just to string us along?"  
  
"If there isn't, then the only thing I feel bad about is that you're still stuck with him in your head.  I honestly don't care if we never get to sail the world as long as I got my best friend back," Stan wasn't sure if he could have spouted such mush without a drink or two in him but, there it was, sprawled out in the open.  He figured he may as well throw a bit more of his soul out onto the carpet.  "But..." he paused, uncertain if he wanted this much rolled out to potentially be stomped on.   _Oh well.  At least everything's pretty numb if it is,_  he thought.  "Is it selfish," he asked, "that I'd still want you to live even though I know how hard this is for you?  Even though I know this isn't a great life for you?"  
  
"I don't think it is," Ford answered, considering his own situation over some general ethical quandary.  Just like Stan, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to manage such sentiment without the rum, but with it, it flowed out freely, "I'm glad to have my best friend back too.  And I do want to be here if it's what you want."  
  
Before Stan could react, before he could realize that Ford hadn't stomped on his soul and had, in fact, laid his own on the line in return, Bill dug his heels into them both, twisting and grinding them.  
  
Ford's shoulders twitched, his hands flying to the sides of his head, empty cup rolling over the padded floor resting against the bars of his padded cage.  His groan cut off abruptly as his head snapped up, eye glowing yellow.  
  
"Aw what a sweet conversation.  Blargh," Bill stuck out Ford's tongue with a gag.  "Sounds like one of those sappy sitcoms you guys used to watch in the 90's or one of those greeting cards your mama used to send.  Ugh," he shuddered, "Family values and whatever the heck.  Gross."  He reached for Ford's cup and crumpled it, releasing the belch built up in his gut as he chucked the cup at Stan's head.  
  
Stan dodged with a deadpan expression.  He took a deep breath, threw back the rest of his drink, and spat, "I thought you've been busy with some new chumps lately."  
  
"Yeah yeah, I'm making the rounds, getting things put into place.  Going to be interesting to see how this all unfolds," he jeered, rocking Ford's head in a smug gesture the man would never perform of his own will.  "Just remember, I managed to turn him against you once.  It might be more difficult but I'm pretty sure I could manage it again.  And this time," He threatened, darting forward and grabbing the bars, framing his glowing eye between them, "I might just have some backup."    
  
Ford's hand swiped through and Stan scrambled away, his foot catching one of the empty soda cans.  His heart lodged in his throat as it rolled onto its side, edging close to the bars.  He bolted forward, landing on the pillow on his stomach, his knees rubbing raw against the carpet as his hands fumbled for the can.  The pillow slid out from under his stomach, his robe tangling around him as Bill closed Ford's hand around the can.  With a grin that stretched Ford's mouth unnaturally over gaps between clenched teeth, he forced Ford's hands to crush it until the sides splintered out in sharp points.  He wrapped Ford's right hand around it, squeezing until blood dripped to the pillows below then throwing it between the bars in Stan's general direction.  
  
"Ahh..." Ford hissed, bending forward and cradling his hand as Bill left him to the sting of fresh wounds puncturing his palm and fingers.  
  
Stan cursed himself for letting his guard down, for keeping anything potentially dangerous too close to the bars.  He leapt to his feet, nearly losing his boxers in the scramble, his slippers twisting off of his feet.  Cups, cans, and the near-empty rum bottle were swiped up into his arms and dropped in a pile near the door.  The trunk's wooden lid slammed up against the wall and he dug through its supplies for antiseptic and liquid bandages.  
  
Thankfully, the damage wasn't too bad, one cut across his palm and two punctures on his fingers, but the world seemed to blur and spin as Ford sputtered apologies and worries.  Stan risked treating his cuts without restraints, assuring his twin that, despite his reddened knees, he hadn't hurt him.  He winced as hisses perforated Ford's panic each time he applied liquid bandage, his arms jumping under the anxious assumption that any sudden movement could be Bill returning.  
  
With the situation settled, Ford sitting cross-legged, albeit, a little more hunched, by the bars and Stan, sitting on the floor pillow again, Ford asked one last time, "You're sure you're alright?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine aside from being, I hate to say it but..." Stan rubbed the back of his head and confessed, "I'm a little rattled by what he said."  
  
"Stanley..." Ford muttered, cradling his injured hand, shoulders drawn up nearly to his ears, his hair hanging in damp curls over his brows.  "What if he really can follow through on that threat?  What if he has the ability to influence my emotions so severely again?  He already tried after the surgery!  I don't want to hurt you!"  
  
Stan sat back, his arms crossed over his chest, resting on his stomach.  He'd had a feeling Bill had some influence over Ford's breakdown back at the surgery center but it seemed different, like, rather than rearranging memories, he was provoking emotions that any reasonable person would express but that Ford, being Ford, would bottle up.  As much as Stan wanted to assure him it couldn't happen again, as much as he wanted to vow he wouldn't let it, he couldn't.  He didn't know what Bill was capable of, Hell, he still didn't know exactly what happened last time.  
  
_Well,_ he thought, _I planned on asking Ford about this anyway.  No better time than now._  
  
"Ford," he ventured forward, or perhaps, backwards, into the tangled bramble of their history, "what did he make you think back then, exactly?"  
  
"He-" Ford paused, thinking back on the incident, unearthing memories from what he'd hoped would be their graves.  He fidgeted with a bolster pillow, shifting the microbead stuffing over his fingers as he tried to explain, "he made me think you showed up one day and you were keeping me as a prisoner in my own home."  
  
"I mean...  Technically I was and still am-"  
  
"Because I asked you to," Ford interrupted, "But...  He hid that from me."  The pillow squished between his hands, the sting of his cuts only causing him to tighten his grip, his tone edged in rage and panic, "He made me believe you were the one who was hurting me-- that you were doing to me everything that HE was."  
  
"Maybe he wasn't completely wrong," Stan mumbled.  He noticed Ford's grip easing visibly as he continued, "I left practically right after I got here.  You fell asleep shortly after you bandaged up my burn from our fight and he possessed you and attacked me.  I went and checked into a hotel.  I planned on leaving for good because I didn't get it...  I didn't get that there was really a demon in your head."  
  
"Stanley," he looked up, hands folding over the pillow in his lap, "I wouldn't have blamed you for leaving, nor for if you never came back.  But...  I'm thankful you did."  
  
"Still...  I saw what he did to you.  Shit, Ford, I close my eyes and I can still see the mess he made out of your arms and I'm looking at the scars right now!"  Stan regretted those words the moment they left his mouth.  Ford folded his arms around himself as he hunched over, sheltering them in shadow.  Even so, Stan needed to know more.  Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was only to assuage his own guilt, or maybe there was information he could use to help Ford in the future...  Or, as a defense against Bill.  
  
No matter the reason, he had to know.  "I kind of feel like it's my fault for leaving.  Is that..." he paused, rephrasing his question, "Did you feel like I abandoned you-?"  
  
"No.  I mean...  I'm not sure I really even knew you were gone until you brought it up weeks later," Ford explained, "He'd possessed me and you came back before I woke up again.  So, no.  I don't think it was anything to do with blaming you for leaving.  He probably dug up the old feelings I had when I'd blamed you for my project failing and made me believe you destroyed the portal to hurt me, and that you might be planning to..."  
  
Stan's eyes widened as he filled in the blank, "kill you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So it's true, then," he sighed, his arms unraveling from around his chest hands settling over his folded legs.  "He was making me out to be some sort of sadistic kidnapper or murderer with a personal vendetta against you or something."  
  
Ford nodded.  
  
"So when you attacked me, it was out of fear and self-defense?"  
  
"And...  anger," he admitted, shaking his head at himself.  "As much as I'd like to say it was only my anger at Bill redirected at you, it was more than that.  He rearranged things so I was angry at being held prisoner, at seeing the portal destroyed, at everything he made me believe you did."  
  
"If you were that pissed off at me, if you were afraid for your life, then, when you had the crossbow aimed at my head, why did you hesitate?"  
  
Ford raised an eyebrow, confusion pouring out in a single repeated word, "Hesitate?"  
  
"Yeah.  You had the crossbow aimed right at me," confusion tinted his own voice as he explained, tapping his forehead exactly where the bolt's tip had been aimed.  "You had more than enough time to shoot and I practically told you to do it.  But you didn't.  It's what gave me the opening to wrestle that thing away from you."  
  
"I hesitated...?" he repeated again, his gaze darting down.  
  
"You...  don't remember that?"  
  
"No...  I thought...  I thought you were just faster and stronger..."  
  
"Damn."  
  
"I had the chance...  but didn't shoot?" Ford mumbled, the fog clearing over the memories.  "I didn't...  I couldn't.  I couldn't!"  He looked up as if he'd just discovered the answer to a complex equation.  "I couldn't because it was you!  Because...  even if you were out to get me I still couldn't...  I couldn't do it!"  Ford stared blankly for a moment, letting the notion settle in.  
  
"You've let go of a lot of anger since then," Stan said, "Even with that old anger fueling you back then, he still couldn't make you do it.  If he couldn't then, how does he think he can now?"  
  
"You...  you're right.  Stanley, you're right!" Ford agreed, a wide smile lifting his cheeks, "Some part of me still knew that situation was wrong.  If he couldn't succeed then, he certainly won't now.  I...  I won't let him!"  
  
"So you get it then!"  Stan beamed, his chest puffed out in pride.    
  
"Get what?"  
  
"We won!" Stan cheered, leaning forward to grab the bars, "We're still winning.  He tried everything to pull us apart that day but he couldn't do it.  We won!"    
  
"And no matter what he does to us now," Ford added, leaning forward to grasp the bars from his side of the cell, "as long as we keep him out of our world, as long as we keep working together, we're still winning."  
  
It was true.  Bill had tried to take a moment of solidarity and throw it in their faces but they had thrown it back in his.  The two laughed, feeling as though a physical weight had been lifted from their entire bodies, like they'd spent the past thirty years wearing suits of armor and had finally found the peace to shed them.  They each sat back, Ford among the pillows and padding and Stan on the mostly flattened floor pillow and simply enjoyed the silence, the warmth of amber light, and the buzz of booze swimming in their brains.  
  
Stan's rum-flavored hiccup sliced through the silence.  He pardoned himself with another chuckle and asked out of pure curiosity, "So, Ford, heh.  What if you were aiming at Bill that day and you knew the shot would do him in?"  
  
Ford aimed his finger at an imaginary target somewhere off to his right and made a popping sound as if he'd just fired a shot.  "I'd pull the trigger without a second thought," he said, unfolding one leg and kicking it awkwardly against the padded floor, "Then I'd kick him a few times for good measure.  What about you?"  
  
Stan stared down at his hands, clenching and relaxing his fists.  Finally, he answered, "I don't know...  After everything he's put us through, I think I'd want him to hurt more than that."  
  
"Really?"  
  
Stan sat bolt upright at the return of Bill's voice, brows furrowing in fury as yellow flashed from his brother's eye.  
  
"That seems preeeeety petty for someone who generally thinks  _I'm_  the monster." Bill crooned, waving Ford's hand in a smug gesture, almost too closely to how that snobby Preston guy often did.  
  
"Argh!" Ford's gravely tenor returned as he bent over his own lap, grabbing his head and chanting, "Get out!  Get out get out get out!"  
  
His posture straightened and Bill's nasal whine chimed through, "Hey, you're the one who let me in... from now until the end of time, right partner?  You think you're winning?  You haven't seen the moves I have in store yet."  
    
Ford bent over again, his breath coming in heavy puffs.  Stan leaned forward, peering through the bars as his brother looked up to him, darkness growing under an eye drooping in exhaustion. His tone was meek, squeaking airily every so often as he asked, "Is...  Is it irresponsible if we don't keep searching for ways to stop him from hurting anyone else?  Is it wrong that sometimes I just want him out of my head?  That sometimes I don't care what happens after that as long as he leaves us alone...  That...  I just want to be free?"  
  
Stan sat back, feeling as if his heart was being wrung like an old rag.  The lines etched into his brother's face, the dampness of his eye, even the slouch of his posture dripped in exhaustion.  He puffed out a long breath and answered, "No more wrong than me wanting to make him suffer, I suppose.  Except...  I hate to say this but... I don't think getting him out of your head is going to make him leave us alone."  
  
"I know.  You're right.  I'm just...  So tired."  
  
There was still more Stan wanted to discuss, more he needed to know and understand but maybe...  Maybe this was enough for one night.  Maybe they both needed to just get some rest.  Yet...  something nagged at him.  This was usually about the time that he'd ask Ford if he's alright and Ford would tell him to "Just go.  Please."  Maybe he'd avoid it by suggesting they rest.  Maybe it was for the best that they leave things be for now.    
  
He opened his mouth to mention the idea but either the alcohol or his own dumb feelings took the wheel and he asked,  "Hey, Ford.  Back in '98, when Bill used the panic button that one day and you were...  well, seriously depressed.  He said you...  I mean...  Did you really..."  That was it.  Stan didn't know how he'd blurted through thoughts to get to this point nor if he could actually say the rest.  The notion itself was so nebulous, so hard to grasp that it refused to form into words.  He steadied himself and attempted again, the question coming out swift and flat, "Did you really try to kill yourself?"  
  
"W-what?  Stanley, where is this coming from?"  His voice shook as he edged away from the bars.  
  
Despite his own pulse pounding in his ears as his hands wrapped around the bars, Stan's tone was unwavering, "Did you?"  
  
"N-no.  Why would you think that?"  
  
"Tell me the truth, Ford."  He sucked in a deep breath and added firmly, "Please."  
  
He couldn't answer.  He turned away, head hung in shadow, one arm wrapped across his chest, clutching the other.  
  
It was as good as a yes.  
  
"How many times did you try?" Stan's cadence remained kind but his urgency, demanding.  
  
"I-I don't really know," Ford muttered, nearly inaudibly.  
  
"And...  Bill stopped you?"  
  
"Ha ha ha!  Sure did!"  Ford's head snapped up, his eye yellow once more as the demon praised himself, "I should get a few thank you's for that, shouldn't I?"  
  
His head slumped forward again, a light gasp escaping his lips, his hands bracing him against the ground, arms trembling.  
  
"Is what he said true?"  Stan asked, swallowing hard as if to choke down immeasurable rage and grief.    
  
There was no point in lying to Stan.  Whether Ford liked it or not, his brother already knew the answer and probably had for years.  He sighed and confirmed, "...Yes."  
  
"When was the last time you tried?" The question came faster than he could think it.  
  
"Shortly before Dipper and Mabel were born."  
  
Stan wanted to reach through the bars, to pull his brother close into the hug they both desperately needed but it wasn't just the threat of Bill that stopped him.  Ford was retreating.  He pulled back, settling into the corner where Stan knew he felt safe, even if it was a false sense of security.  In all honesty, he didn't know what to do, whether he should try to draw him back out, or let him have that shred of comfort.  Not that it mattered anymore, he was already out of reach.  
  
Stan settled back into a cross-legged position for what seemed like the hundredth time that night and asked, "Is that what changed things?  Is that when things started getting better for you?"    
  
"...I suppose," Ford answered, his voice muffled by his arms as he folded them over his lifted knees. "Well, that and finding medications that worked and all that other stuff we were talking about earlier..."  
  
"Why?"  
  
For a question of only one word, Ford's mind could answer in an entire book.  Part of him wanted to ask him to leave.  Part of him wanted to dismiss the question with a joke or simple I don't know, but he wasn't lying when he said he was tired.  He truly was tired, so tired that he was beyond the form of tired that caused him to avoid the truth.  "Stanley..." he began, "We were growing older... maybe it was some type of mid-life crisis but...  I never really knew if a family was something I wanted.  I suppose...  It hit me that our opportunities were dwindling, that neither of us would probably ever have that because of me.  When the kids were born, it gave me hope.  At least we had some family...  Not that I'd attempt to act like they were my own children or anything but, at least..."  
  
"At least we could spend time with them and spoil them like uncles are supposed to..." Stan added, understanding so well that he may as well have answered the question himself from his own experiences and perspective.  
  
"After that," Ford continued, lifting his head and propping his chin on his arms, "I finally figured out that if I had succeeded in any of those attempts to...  End things...  It really would have been the end.  But, If I kept living, kept trying...  Then there was still hope.  Maybe not for a family of my own but at least to be a part of this one.  And...  I realized that what you said was true, that you and I are family and I didn't want to throw that away."  
  
With a deep breath, Stan replied, "Ford, thank you for telling me."  He wished he could put more of his thoughts into words, wished he could express how much it meant to him that Ford felt that way.  Years ago, when their father had thrown him out on the street, Ford had shut him out, closing the curtains as he begged for help at their window.  Now, decades later, he could finally see they were open again.  Ford had fought against himself, against his own brain, against a damn demon to let Stan back into his life.  Maybe he was worth something after all.  Maybe it was true that just being there for each other was enough.  
  
Ford nodded in reply, his chin still resting on his arms as he huddled in the corner but, he hadn't asked Stan to leave.  
  
"Hey, Ford?"  
  
"Mmm."  
  
"I want to do more than we are.  It feels like we've let things go, like we've let this all become routine to us.  Do you mind if I ask Dr. Braum if she knows of a therapist that can help us?  Maybe it won't do anything about our demon infestation but, I think getting us both some emotional help would be a step in the right direction." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vkhhvk. Kxpdqv duh frpsolfdwhg.
> 
> Past codes decoded [ here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
> Bwahahahahahaha! [ I know how a major event is going to happen now! ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/173272195598/bwahahahaha-ive-finally-figured-out-how-a-major) AND! I think I know how this is going to end and if it all works out, I hope it will be glorious... ;)


	18. New Development

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Ford are a little buzzed from sharing a fair amount of rum. Dipper wakes up far too early with too many thoughts on his mind. When he gets up for a glass of water, he finds Stan's bedroom door open and no sign of him in the shack. Between that, the food that keeps going missing from the kitchen, and Stan's refusal to acknowledge his scars and tattoo as things that even exist, Dipper's a little more than suspicious that Stan is just one more weird thing about Gravity Falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings - Er... not much for this one, really. Mentions of human bites (in the context of scars from fights), Slight panic, Eye trauma mention
> 
> Aside from the beginning bit, this is mostly a lighter chapter from Dipper's perspective with a slight shift from canon. Next chapter will likely be from Mabel's perspective.
> 
> There is technically art for the last chapter but I'm not terribly happy with how it turned out so I'll probably redo it and post it later this week on[ tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rum-and-shattered-dreams)

"I want to do more than we are.  It feels like we've let things go, like we've let this all become routine to us.  Do you mind if I ask Dr. Braum if she knows of a therapist that can help us?  Maybe it won't do anything about our demon infestation but, I think getting us both some emotional help would be a step in the right direction."  
  
Dipper and Mabel's existence in the world had helped turn things around for Stan and Ford over a decade ago.  It was what set them back on the path of trying again.  They'd taken up reading books on mental health, far too many with far too many separate opinions.  They'd tried the exercises, sometimes they worked and sometimes they made things worse.  The ones that seemed effective for them were mindful thinking and believable affirmations - things they could tell themselves that they knew to be true, their most powerful one being that every day they kept going was another day that Bill didn't use them to find a way into their world.  The wall of photos had proven useful as well, creating a visual of everything they had to be thankful for, to live for, to hope for.  
  
But Stan had a point.  Things really were becoming routine again, as if time had worn down their efforts and hopes.  Besides that, clearly it was true that they had been failing to communicate despite their best efforts, holding things back even during the exercises they'd ran through and letting each other get away with it.  Perhaps someone to intervene, to hold them accountable wasn't such a bad idea.  
  
Ford opened his mouth to answer but a nasaly cackle emerged instead.    
  
"Ha ha ha ha ha!  You think a therapist is going to help clean up the mess I made in here?  Pfft,” Bill chortled, tapping on the side of Ford's head.  “I think you need a wrecking ball and a construction crew to rebuild this.”     
  
Ford's eye dimmed, his head falling forward onto arms crossed over his lifted knees, shadows slashed through warm light cast upon him from the bars of his cell.  A raspy noise emerged, so muffled that Stan couldn't tell if it was meant to be a word or not.  
  
"Ford?" He prompted, raising an eyebrow.  
  
He lifted his head just enough to repeat, "Yes."  
  
"Yes, what?" Stan asked, needing to know for sure what he meant.  
  
"If there is someone who can help...  I want to try."  
  
"We'll talk to Dr. Braum tomorrow night, then."  Stan shifted on his pillow, his knees cracking as he rolled forward into a sloppy crouch.  A muffled mumble from the corner paused his attempt to stand.  He looked up to find Ford leaning his head against the padding on the far wall, his arms still clutching his raised knees.  
  
"Please..." was the only word Stan could make out.  
  
_No.  Not this time,_  he thought.   _I'm not leaving after we dumped our souls out-_   He opened his mouth to speak his mind, to tell Ford how he'd grown to loathe that word, how he could barely speak it himself because of how often it meant "go away".  
  
But, before he could wrangle his thoughts into something audible, Ford mumbled with just enough clarity for Stan to realize he was repeating what he'd said in the first place, "Don't go."  
  
Stan lifted himself to his feet and rested his hand on the patchwork padding of one of the bars.  "I got no plans of going anywhere.  I'm just gonna get the air mattress."  
  
"I'm sorry if...  You don't have to...  I mean.  No, I shouldn't have asked.  It's probably just the rum talking.  The kids will wonder where you are and-," his words stumbled over each other in his own uncertainty.    
  
Stan rummaged through the storage chest and pulled out the rolled up mattress.  Flopping it onto the floor, he interrupted, "I'll figure that out if I have to.  I ain't leavin' you alone after I made you spill your guts to me.  And," he added, fumbling with the air pump, "I'm not exactly ready to be left alone with my dumb thoughts and spilled guts either."  The buzz of the air pump filled the padded room as wrinkles smoothed out of the mattress, the fabric growing taut over the air inside.  As it filled, Stan pulled a tattered notebook with a pen shoved in its spiral spine and a few crayons from the nearly empty box from the book case as well as the last book he'd been reading to Ford, a mystery thriller they'd both been enjoying.  
  
After shutting off the pump and throwing some bedding over the mattress, Stan settled in, his bottom displacing enough air to hit the ground.  He considered switching the subject, distracting both himself and Ford with drawing or reading but there was one last thought screaming to be released and addressed.  He waited for Ford to relax, edging away from the corner the slightest bit before trying to put things into words.  
  
"I'm glad you want me to stay," Stan said, his fingers clutching one of the crayons like a cigar.  He had to consciously stop himself from raising it to his lips, rolling it between his fingertips instead.  "All those other times, when you asked me to leave...  I'd rather have stayed.  But I get that some people don't like being all emotional in front of anyone."  
  
"Having someone here always seemed like it would make things it harder," Ford admitted, his attention focused down on arranging a pile of pillows into a comfortable sleeping configuration, rather like a bird building a nest in the corner.  "The notion of consuming someone else's time and energy and dragging their mood down with mine is... Unpleasant.  If people disliked me when I was enthusiastic about things, how much more would they hate me for being...  Nevermind..."  
  
"No, it's alright.  You're looking at the master of puttin' on a show 'cause of that."  Stan chuckled grimly.  He leaned forward over folded legs, his tone softening, "But, I want you to talk to me, alright?  I ain't some fair-weather friend.  And...  maybe that means I gotta learn to talk about things better with you, too."  
  
"I'll gladly listen," Ford offered.  "But, I think there's more to it than avoiding things because we don't want to dampen each other's moods.  I don't know if you feel the same but, for me, well, perhaps I prefer being alone out of some twisted sense of pride.  Admittedly, disliking the idea of anyone seeing me in such a mess does play a part but, even more, if someone is present, I feel an obligation to speak my thoughts, to bare them to the outside world, and that feels as though it would only serve to exasperate the situation."  
  
How did Ford do it?  Several drinks in him and his speech seemed stuffier than usual, as if he was trying not to let the buzz show through but failing as bottled up emotions squeezed through his logical babble.  "Yeah," Stan answered, "I think I get it.  It's more than dealing with saying it out loud, not that that isn't bad enough.  It's probably scary because if you do say those things, someone can argue with them and you can't be sure you're right about thinking them anymore."  
  
"And that's the last thing the monsters in my mind wa- Ah..." Ford gasped, his eye clenched closed.  
  
It reopened revealing Bill's malevolent yellow glow, split in its center by inky darkness.  Stan blinked, limbs tensing, fists pressing down into the air mattress as he held back the urge to flinch away.  
  
"Yes, you called?" Bill taunted, stretching Ford's lips into an unnaturaly wide grin.  
  
"No," Ford answered, massaging his jaw and flexing it, his shoulders tensing around his chin.  "Not you, Bill!  The metaphorical ones."  
  
His head snapped up, tipping from side to side as the demon cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders back.  "Sheesh," he said, reaching up to rub one of his host body's sore shoulders.  "Hey, Fez-head.  You two grew up together.  Was IQ always this much of a drama queen?"  
  
"Get out!"  Ford Spat, fists clenched and buried in a microfiber pillow in front of him.  
  
"Eh," Bill said, relaxing Ford's body into a lackadaisical slouch, "this sappy emotion junk is boring anyway.  I got better things to do.  Call me if you're gonna try hugging it out.  I'm sure I can come up with some delightfully excruciating alternatives!"  Bill's voice echoed ominously on the last words as he bared Ford's teeth and cracked his knuckles.  
  
Stan struggled to remain still, to appear calm and unimpressed by the demon's threats but inside he seethed.  How dare that demon reinforce Ford's worries?  How dare he show him the unspoken reason he always asked Stan to leave - because he didn't want Bill to make things worse.   
  
"Ergh, I hate when he does that," Ford grumbled with a shiver, shaking his hand as if trying to fling off the sickening sound of his joints cracking, "Anyway," he continued, "that's the last thing the OTHER monsters in my mind want.  They'd rather I continue believing those terrible thoughts are true.  They'll convince me not to speak, not to expose those ideas to criticism, ironically by stirring fears of receiving a confirmation that those thoughts are, indeed, true."  
  
Stan sighed, uncertain if he'd fully processed everything Ford was trying to say but certain he'd felt the same thing.  His glasses lifted as he pinched his nose, his finger and thumb rubbing his eyes.  His hand lowered, glasses slipping down his nose as he offered the only thing his increasingly sleepy mind could muster, "Brains are weird, aren't they?"  
  
"Certainly are," Ford answered, leaning against the back wall, his fingers absently massaging small circles near the edges of his eye patch.  
  
Stan's head tilted in concern as he asked, "Does that still hurt?"   
  
"It's...  No," he answered, his hand lowering to his lap, "Not particularly.  It is still an unfamiliar sensation that it's just...  Gone.  I keep trying to open it in an attempt to see better.  But it isn't that.  It's more that I'm worried."  
  
"Worried?"  
  
"Yes.  What if it starts bleeding again once the stitches are removed?  What if it deteriorates further and a prosthetic is no longer an option?  What if the same thing happens to my other eye?!"  
  
"I wish I could say we won't let it but I've been pretty scared of the same things," Stan said, breathing deeply to ease his own anxieties, "If it does happen, we'll work with it the best we can.  We'll keep trying but we'll make changes where ever we have to."  
  
"...I suppose."  
  
Stan wished he could offer more, wished he could see the future and that it would show him everything would turn out fine but, without knowing, he was at a loss for what else to say that might even be close to comforting.  All he knew how to do at this point was to fall back on their usual routine of distractions.  "Well, since I'm stayin' the night," Stan said, taking the pause in conversation as an opportunity to change the subject, "You want to help me out with those notes you gave me a bit ago about the cyclopto-whatever?  I was trying to type them up earlier tonight and figured a drawing might really help,"  he suggested, offering Ford a page from the notebook and a lime green crayon.  
  
"Ah, the Cycloptopus," Ford replied, edging forward from his corner nest to take the crayon and paper.  He tapped the stubby crayon to his chin, thinking aloud, "I remember seeing them here in the early years.  Do you think using them in the novel is a good idea?"  
  
"Sure," Stan answered with a lift of his lips.  Whatever that creature was, apparently Bill didn't see a reason to erase it from Ford's mind and he seemed to feel pretty good about actually remembering it.  "I don't see why not," he affirmed, "Sounds like something an interdimensional traveler-type would find."  
  
****  
  
Dipper smacked his lips, his parched throat overtaking the grogginess of too few hours of sleep.  In the near-darkness of predawn, he stared up, past the spiderwebs and moldy support beams and into the shadows of the peaked ceiling of the attic bedroom he shared with his sister...  And apparently a pig and sometimes a goat...  And possibly an invisible wizard who hid in the closet, though that was more of a joke than a confirmed supernatural phenomenon, right?  Mabel probably just saw the write up in the journal he'd found and let her imagination run with it, right?  
  
He breathed deeply, trying not to let anxiety spiral around that thought too much.  With his arms crossed behind his head, he found himself smiling up at what little he could see of a painting of a ship he'd found in their summer room and hung above his bed on their first day.  He'd grown fond of it over the past few weeks, much like he'd grown used to the rough floor boards and triangular construction of the shack.  Every tear in the wallpaper and stain on the carpets had become familiar, almost like a home filled with stories behind every scratch and dent.  Especially, he thought, since they were responsible for the story of the recent repairs to the museum and gift shop, thanks to their run-in with the Gremloblin the other day.  They hadn't come clean with Stan about that one yet...  Or several other incidents.  
  
But, maybe it wasn't too bad staying here for the summer after all.  He'd seen more supernatural things in less than a month than he had in his entire life.  And, Maybe Stan wasn't that bad either.  Sure he was grumpy and smelled like menthol and deli meat, sure he made him take on chores that were unpleasant at best, and sure he could be a nightmare as a boss, but something about the way he'd hugged them when he got back from his vacation struck him as genuine.  Maybe he lies a lot.  Maybe he's committed some crimes.  But he had always sent them birthday cards with some (hopefully not counterfeit) cash inside and he'd always seemed enthusiastic about how much they'd grown and how well they were doing in school.  
  
But why did he always have to be so weird about things like his scars and his tattoo?  He pretended like they didn't even exist, like Dipper was crazy for seeing them at all.  
  
His mind raced, his teeth gnawing on the neck of his shirt, the taste of salty sweat prompting him to spit it out.  _Bleh.  I definitely need a drink._    
  
With that thought, he untangled himself from his sheets, tiptoeing through the room, sidestepping a slumbering Waddles, and assuring his sister was still asleep with a stuffed unicorn clutched between her arms before he eased the door shut behind him.   He shuffled down the stairs and into the second story hall, yawning as boards protested in cracks and squeaks under his socks.  He patted his hand along the weathered wainscoting, careful to avoid splinters as he used it to guide him through the darkness.  His fingers lifted instinctually  as they found the moulding surrounding Stan's bedroom door, moving to trace its surface but finding nothing there.  
  
_Huh.  Stan never sleeps with his door open.  Maybe he needed a drink or had to go to the bathroom or something._  
  
But the bathroom stood empty, cast in hues of grey in the brightening predawn light.  The kitchen was much the same aside from a tray in the sink and the oven door cracked open a little, the smell of pizza lingering in the air.  Stan must have made a midnight snack again.  It seemed he did that a lot, so much so that he thought Stan’s figure looked pretty good for the amount he appeared to eat.   _Maybe he just has a fast metabolism or something._  
  
He shrugged again, pouring himself a glass of cold orange juice from the jug in the fridge.  
  
_Wait.  Wasn't there a leftover salad bowl from their pizza order?_   Part of him was glad to see it gone, he never cared much for having to chew his way through a bowl of greens but Stan definitely hated it more than he did, barely dipping a single leaf in dressing and grimacing his way through until he swallowed.  There was no way he ate the whole thing.  Yet, there was the empty bowl, sitting upside down in the trash can.  There was no way Mabel ate it, she'd cringed her way through her own bowl earlier, if only to tell their parents that they did eat something with some nutritional value.  Honestly, Dipper didn't even know why Stan bothered ordering the second bowl when the first was just to make them all feel less horrible for getting super meat supreme pizza with stuffed crust.  And, for that matter, who the heck had been eating the veggie lovers?  Stan didn't seem impressed by the one slice he'd had yet half of it was missing from the box.  
  
"And where is he anyway?" he wondered as he chugged his juice.  With that thought, he set his glass in the sink and set out to find his sneaky grunkle.  
  
He grabbed a flashlight from the storm supplies on a shelf by the kitchen door and jogged back upstairs to Stan's open door.  He shone the light around his bed finding the comforter and sheets in a jumbled mess but no grunkle in sight.  Perched precariously upon a stack of cardboard boxes was an ancient typewriter with a nearly completed page sticking out of it like a tongue.  Dipper crept inside, shining the light on the misspelled words and atrocious grammar.  It appeared to be a note of some sorts detailing an octopus-like creature with one eye that opened into a mouth which it used along side stingers on its tentacles in self-defense.  Probably some sort of story Stan would base a new taxidermy creation on for the shack's museum, he figured.  
  
Beside the typewriter, he found a tattered notepad, its spine filled with flecks of paper from torn out pages.  He lifted it, shining the flashlight over it to find Stan's chicken scratch scrawled across the page.  From what he could make out, it was an even less grammatically correct version of the note's he'd been typing.  He shifted the flashlight, holding it under his arm to flip the page.  "'Ford...'" he squinted, unsure if that was really what the scrawled word said, "something something, 'can't remember' something something...  What is this, something about a truck?  A customer or something?  Maybe something to do with that weird thing he mentioned about teaching animals to drive?" Dipper pondered to himself in a hissed whisper.  He shifted the flashlight, flipping to another page when a sharp crack in the hallway stopped his heart.  
  
Sweat ran cold down his arms as the light slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor and rolling across it, bouncing against the bricks below a wood burning stove in the corner.  Fearing the worst, fearing that Stan had come back from...  Wherever and was standing in the doorway, understandably angry and rightfully demanding and explanation for the intrusion into his privacy, Dipper turned around.  
  
"Dipper Pines, what on earth are you doing," Mabel asked in a tone that mimicked their mother's voice of shame, that stern tone that sent ripples of "you should know better" down their spines.  "Why are you snooping through Grunkle Stan's room?  And where is he?"  
  
"Ah-ha!  Yes, where is he, indeed?" Dipper asked.  "He wasn't in the bathroom and he wasn't in the kitchen-"  
  
"So what, you thought it would be okay to just go through all his stuff?" she asked, her voice indignant as she tried to smooth her tousled curls only to get her fingers stuck in a knot.  "Maybe he's stocking the gift shop?  Maybe he's fixing up things in the museum?" she rambled, tugging at her fingers tangled in her hair until they released, "Oof.  Ever think of that?"  
  
"Well...  Alright maybe you have a point," he granted, setting down the notepad, "I didn't check those places but, Mabel, something weird is going on."  
  
"Pfft.  You always think something weird is going on, bro-bro," she said, reaching out to ruffle his bedhead.  
  
Dipper pulled away, his eyebrows flattening as he retorted, "You know as well as I do that everything about this town is weird.  Is it really that far of a stretch that something about Stan is too?"  
  
"Touche," she said, pursing her lips, "But why don't we go take a look around before rummaging all through his stuff."  
  
Dipper conceded, following his sister into each room of the shack, shining his flashlight into shadowy corners and around merchandise and displays.  Waddles oinked lightly, following behind them as he rambled on to her about missing pieces of pizza and the empty salad bowl and "What is with that tattoo and all those scars anyway?"  
  
"Dipper, people have scars sometimes..." Mabel said, waving her hand to brush it off.  
  
"Not like this, look," dipper explained pulling photos from his pocket as a visual aid, "These ones on his arm look like teeth marks and there's a lot of them.  And, if you line them up, they look like they're from the same set of teeth but some of them have more teeth than others, like whoever left those marks did it over a period of time where they lost some teeth."  
  
"Have you been binge watching Forsensic Unsolved Case Mysteries again?" she asked with a raised brow.  
  
"No!  Maybe.  Little bit."  
  
"And...  do you seriously just carry around photos of the scars on our uncle's arms?"  
  
He shoved the photos back into his pocket and stuttered, "I-it's a new development."  
  
"Pfft.  Pun intended?"  
  
"What?  No...!  Mabel, he's hiding something.  I know it!" his voice cracked in frustration as he shone the flashlight behind the checkout counter as if he might find Stan hiding behind a box of receipt tape on one of the shelves.  
  
"Whoa Dipper, take a breath," she said, patting him on the back, "I'm sure we can figure out an explanation for everything.  We both know he didn't eat his salad, right?"  
  
"Yeah," he answered, opening a drawer to find nothing but Stanbucks, a box of staples, and an old camera.  
  
"Well, I saw him feeding the rest to Gompers before we went to bed.  He probably gave him that other bowl too," she said with a shrug. "And I bet he gave him some of that pizza."  
  
"Maybe...  But still, I'm gonna figure out those scars," he vowed, the drawer scraping against its frame as he closed it.  "I know!  I'll make a video about it and expose his tattoo and make him tell me about it."  
  
"Sure sure," she said, bending to pet Waddles between his ears, "but how about we go check out back for now.  Maybe he fell asleep on the porch again."  
  
Dipper shivered at the thought of anyone falling asleep among whatever was growing on that old sofa on the porch.  But, Mabel was right.  It wouldn't be the first time they'd found him asleep out there.  "Fine, let's go."  
  
****  
  
"Stanley...  Stanley, wake up!  Stanley!"  
  
Stan blinked, groaning as he tried to turn onto his side on a mattress with more bounce than the inflatable castle from the fair.  Apparently he'd fallen asleep on his back again, never a pleasant pain to awaken to.  As he rolled over, a book tumbled off of his chest, the sound of it hitting the ground echoing through his head.    
  
"Stanley the kids are awake!" Ford's voice cracked airily, hoarse in his panicked state.  
  
"Ford", he questioned, squinting through smudged glasses, the realization that he'd fallen asleep with them on not quite hitting him yet.    
  
His brother knelt on a pile of pillows, his hair tangled and matted as he pointed to the security monitor above the door.  "Look!," he warned, "They're out on the back porch!  It looks like they're trying to find you."  
  
It took a moment but when the implications hit him, Stan leapt up, tripping over the sheets tangled around his legs.  "Shit.  The sun's barely up, why are they?!" he groused, sliding his feet into his slippers and wrapping his robe around himself.  "Sorry, Ford-"  
  
"It's alright, go, hurry.  Do you have any idea of what to tell them?" Ford asked, watching Stan scramble to move any and all objects away from the bars, stomping on the mattress to deflate it, wadding the sheets into it in a ball, and tossing the lot of it into the trunk.  
  
"Yeah, I think I got something.  I'll let you know how it goes later," he said, rushing through the door and closing it behind.  
  
****  
  
"He's not here." Dipper stated what he thought was the obvious, crossing his arms as Mabel lifted one of the couch's cushions like Stan might be hiding in the bug infested goo below.  
  
"Maybe he was but the gnomes took him?"  
  
"Oh...  Oh no, I wasn't thinking of that.  Oh stupid me getting paranoid and suspicious when I didn't even consider...  Mabel!  What if Rumble McSkirmish came for revenge or what if the Gremloblin came back-?" A slam sliced through Dipper's panic, the sound jolting both siblings into a jump.  
  
"I think it came from the shack," Mabel said, scooping up waddles and running inside.  Dipper followed, his socks slipping below his feet, the knit catching on split floorboards as they rushed toward the gift shop.  
  
They burst through the door to find Stan leaning against the counter, a camera clutched in his hands as he grumbled, "Ugh, son of a- Oh" he paused looking up, eyes wide in surprise, "Kids!  What are you doing up so early?"  
  
"Looking for you.  What are you doing up?" Dipper asked, his tone as accusatory as a police officer asking why his pockets clinked after leaving the silverware section of their Home and Beyond store.  
  
"Eh, I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd go out and see if I could get more spooky photos for exhibits and I got some good ones but this confoundulated camera,"he held it down for Dipper to see the back gaping open, "popped open and exposed all my film."  
  
"Awww, that's no fun," Mabel said, peeking over Dipper's shoulder at the camera.  
  
"Yeah.  Well, maybe you should start carrying the disposable ones I use," Dipper said with more sarcasm than anything resembling sympathy.  
  
"Dipper!" Mabel hissed.  
  
"Sorry, Mabel.  I'm not buying it," Dipper said, raising his finger and pointing it in Stan's face, "I saw that camera behind the counter here before you got back from your little photo shoot."  
  
"What?" Stan grumbled, an eyebrow raised in confusion.  With a sigh, he walked behind the counter opening the drawer with an earsplitting squeal.  He lifted the camera from inside and presented it to Dipper.  "Is this the one you saw?"  
  
"Wait, what?"  
  
"Kid, we sell them here, you know that," Stan explained, motioning to a display on the shelf behind him.  "Tourists love these old antiques.  Pay through the nose for 'em."  
  
Dipper lowered his finger, his jaw hanging slack.    
  
"See, Dipper, I told you there was an explanation," Mabel said, elbowing him.  
  
"Okay then...  What about the missing pieces of pizza from the kitchen?  I thought you hated that veggie lovers one but someone heated up some pieces and ate them tonight," he pried, his hands perched on his hips.  
  
"Yeah, that was me," Stan admitted with a shrug.  "I grabbed pieces from the wrong box.  I thought they smelled a bit weird in the oven but by the time they were done, I stopped caring and just ate them anyway.  I didn't feel like waiting to heat up the other ones.”  Stan sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Look,” he said, “I'm exhausted.  I'm gonna go get cleaned up and I'll make us some Stan-cakes, alright?"  
  
"Oh!  And I'll make up a fresh batch of Mabel juice!" Mabel chimed, running past him toward the kitchen.  
  
"Uh, yeah.  Sure, kid, you do that," Stan said, slippers flopping against the floor, trailing mud as he followed behind.  
  
Dipper sighed, "guess who's gonna have to clean that up..."  
  
****  
  
"I'm gonna find you kid!" Stan's voice rumbled through the woods, sending crows fluttering from their perches among the pines.  
  
Dipper shut off his video camera, huddled in on himself on the roof, the sun blasting the back of his vest. "Oh man oh man oh man, I think I went too far this time.  Stan's really mad.  I never should have confronted him in the shower...  The shower, Ugh!  What was I thinking?!  Even I kind of hoped he'd still have his suit on.  I don't blame him for thinking I was being creepy..."  
  
"Kid?!"  
  
Dipper froze, a startled "eep" escaping him as he scrambled to the roof's edge, hand slipping over the edge.  
  
Stan popped up through the trap door with a triumphant, "Ah ha! I got you!"  His eyes widened as Dipper reeled backwards, toppling over the edge, "Whoa.  Whoa!"  Stan reached out, grabbing his leg in one hand, the other stretching to support his side, pulling him back up.  "Careful, kid," he said, holding the kicking and shouting boy away from himself by the back of his shirt as if he’d picked up an agitated cat by the nape of its neck. "Heh, you got a lot of spunk.  I like that," he said, the words calming the boy's defenses.  "Come on.  We gotta talk," he added.  
  
"Let me go, Grunkle Stan this is embarrassing!" he complained as Stan tucked him under his arm and climbed the ladder back into the gift shop.  At least Wendy wasn't there to see him being toted around like a dog in a purse.  
  
"Alright I give up!  I'm sorry!" he surrendered, squirming to get away as Stan carried him into the living room.  He plopped him down on the arm of his chair, the entire thing bouncing as he flopped into the seat.    
  
"What's gotten into you, kid?" Stan asked, a hand clapped over his back.  
  
"What's gotten into you?!" Dipper retorted, ducking away, his shirt stuck to his back in a sweaty splotch.  "Sneaking around at night, the constant midnight snacks that may as well be full meals, swearing you don't have scars or a tattoo I can see with my own eyes..."  
  
The kid was on to him.  He had to give him something to throw him off.  Or...  Maybe to ease his own guilt.  
  
"I guess," Stan said with a sigh, "if it's bothering you that much, kid, I'll make a deal with you.  I'll tell you a bit about the scars if you promise to stop asking about the tattoo.  It's not something I'm ready to talk about yet."  He wasn't completely lying.  He could easily have made up a story about how he'd had a few too many drinks and got some weird looking symbol he didn't understand tattooed on his shoulder but, he didn't want to.  When he told the kids about that, he wanted it to be the truth.  He wanted the story to include his brother even if it wasn't their finest moment.  Instead, he'd settle for a vague account of the various scratches and bite marks streaking his arms.  Perhaps a few lies of omission would satisfy his curiosity for now.  
  
"Alright," Dipper agreed, settling down onto the chair's arm.  "It's a deal if you promise you will tell us about it someday."  
  
"I will," Stan paused, the irony hitting him that he probably hoped it would be sooner rather than later as much as Dipper did but, for his own reasons.  "Well, the scars, ya see," he began, pointing out a particularly nasty looking one sliced across the upper half of his left arm then motioning to lighter scratches and bite marks on his lower arm.  "It might look like things have always been decent for me, having a house and a fairly successful business and being the town darling and all," he boasted.  
  
Dipper's eyebrow twitched incredulously.  
  
"Eh-hem.  Right then," Stan Grumbled, "Anyway, life hasn't been as easy as it looks.  There's been a lot of times I had to fight to get myself out of bad situations, and I don't mean work hard, I mean actually throw some punches and wrestle my way out of things.  There's this one guy in particular who kept coming after me no matter how many times I had to fight him off.  I don't wanna to get into the details right now because, as much as I hate to admit it, it's nightmare fuel, but, let me put it this way.  I know you kids can see that I'm a...  Bit of a con man."  
  
"That's an understatement," Dipper snorted, crossing his arms.  
  
"Well, this guy was into some bad stuff.  And that's coming from me."  
  
"Yikes."  
  
"Yeah, yikes.  I tell ya what, though.  If you ever get in a fight with anyone and need a last resort, human teeth can do more damage than you'd imagine.  Er..." he scratched his head, his fez tipping to the side, "But probably don't do that.  Forget I said it, even."  
  
"...Right." Dipper said, lowering his hat to scrunch it between his hands, "So, why did this guy keep coming after you?"  
  
Stan sighed, searching for the best answer without giving anything away.  Finally, he settled for, "He was trying to take something important away from me."  
  
"Can I ask what?"  
  
_Of course he's asking questions.  What did you expect from the kid, Stan?_   With no real way to answer he hoped Dipper would understand.  "...I can't tell you right now but I will as soon as I can."  
  
"Did he...  get it?"  
  
"No," he answered, clapping Dipper on the back, "And he never will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xka vlr pxv F'j x ifxo...
> 
>  
> 
> [ past codes from end notes deciphered here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
>  
> 
> I might have an extra chapter next week that I'll post separately with a link for the sake of explaining something that probably needs addressing. It doesn't play into the overall plot but it is something that some might be questioning. I'll keep it separate because, while it won't be anything violent or explicit, it will contain mature content in the form of a conversation that might be understandably uncomfortable for some. However, what I intend for it to reveal is both a relief and an emotional blow.


	19. Follow-up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan gets caught in a philosophical discussion, Dipper wonders if Stan is in some kind of trouble, Ford has a follow-up appointment with Dr. Braum and makes Stan regret giving him a gag gift in the best way possible, Gideon finally sees the end of a recurring dream, and Mabel sees an unfamiliar SUV leaving the Mystery Shack in the middle of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Not much really. Weird dreams. Mention of eye trauma.
> 
> Well, I guess this chapter didn't end up being written mostly from Mabel's point of view, but it's a sort of transition between POV's that includes a little of each of the Pines' perspectives with a side of Gideon's dreams. The next chapter definitely will be mostly Mabel's POV.

Stan wasn't sure at what point he started waxing philosophical, but, in his attempt to keep his brother and their circumstances concealed from Dipper's curiosity, he'd started sounding like the old nerd.  Maybe he'd spent too much time with Ford's buzzed banter last night or maybe it was some new level of conman charisma, streaming out like an unlocked ability in one of the video games he'd watched the kids play.  Either way, Dipper was looking more and more disturbed and confused as Stan dealt distractions from the kid's queries.  
  
"Time blurs when ya get older, kid," he said, not sure he'd even fully thought through any of the things tumbling off his tongue.  "One minute can feel like eternity while ten years feels like it was just yesterday.  You get a feeling that you're worn down and wanna go to that special diner where everything from the tile in the bathroom to the crunch of their onion rings made you happy, to that booth in the corner you can still see so clearly in your head, but you can't go back 'cause it was mowed down fifteen years ago and replaced with a McTaco Hut.   Popular slang slips out before you realize no one's used it since 1982 because, somehow, thirty years happened in three seconds.  You could swear your mother's funeral couldn't have been more than a year ago but suddenly you're having a deep conversation with someone who wasn't even alive yet when it happened."  
  
"Uh...  Grunkle Stan?" Dipper interrupted, lifting a brow in concern as his hands wrung around his hat, "Are you okay?"  
  
He sighed, freeing the baseball cap from Dipper's grip.  He gave it a single shake, popping the crown back into shape and set it on his head, ruffling it over his hair.  "Yeah," he answered with a light smile, "I'm just sayin' it's easy to lose track of time.  Easy to get into a routine.  I remember being a kid, when I had more of a sense of time.  But even then, those summer days that stretched on for hours were over too soon, heh.  Guess I'm sayin' you should go out and enjoy yours.  Don't worry 'bout this stuff, kiddo.  You'll get your answers in good time.  Just go have fun for now, alright?"  
  
"Yeah," he answered, lifting the lip of his hat and smiling up at Stan, "I will.  Thanks for telling me what you could, Grunkle Stan."  Maybe it wasn't the most detailed answer but, he'd done the best he could.  He just hoped it would be enough to make the kid stop poking around for a while.  No.  To make him feel less...  Left out of things.  
  
****  
  
Dipper thought he'd be excited to share the news with his sister but something hidden within his Grunkle's melancholy tone and the blanks he hadn't filled in left his, "Mabel, guess what?" feeling flat.  
  
"Pig butt!" she said, nudging Waddles with her foot while her knitting needles clicked away in her hands.  
  
"I'm just going to ignore that and tell you," Dipper began, settling into a cross-legged position on the attic floor across from his sister, clutching one ankle in his hands.  "After we gave up on getting any video confession or good footage of Stan's scars and tattoos this morning, I kind of..." his voice sped up, words practically climbing over each other to escape as he continued, "heard him in the shower and took the camera in and tried to get a shot of it so I could make him talk."  
  
"You did what?!" the needles slipped from her hands, purple knit bundling beneath her fists as she leaned forward.  
  
"Uh-"  
  
"You're braver than I thought," she said, sitting back, her arms crossed over her chest and lips pursed as she gave an over-dramatic nod of approval.  "Dumber.  But braver."  
  
"Um...  Thanks?"  He said, partly wishing he would have had her reaction to the idea the moment he'd thought it but partly glad he followed through.  If he hadn't, he might still be beating his head against a log wall with trying to get Stan to talk.  "It wasn't the best idea," he admitted, fingers scratching at the back of his head.  "but, he totally expected it and was wearing his suit.  His full suit!  In the shower!"  
  
"Serves you right for being a creeper!" She said with a light laugh, lowering her arms to sort out the knitted pile in her lap.  
  
"Yeah.  I don't blame him for being mad," Dipper granted, leaning back against the side of his bed, "I thought he was going to kill me at first but, he saved me from falling off the roof and then we sat down and actually talked for a bit."  
  
"Sooo," Mabel crooned, her voice growing more excited as she leaned forward to blurt out questions, "What did he say?  Did he get the tattoo from an alien?  What does it mean?  Does it give him some kind of superpower?  And what about the scars?  How did he get them?  Was he captured by an evil sorcerer and tortured because he knew where the pirate's treasure was hidden?  Then he had to duel to the death with a centaur for the lady they both loved but she threw herself between them and died tragically because she couldn't bare to see either of them hurt?"  
  
"Whoa, Mabel!"  Dipper held up his hands to interrupt her, "That's...  Awfully specific..."  
  
"Well, you were making all of your paranormal-y movies.  It made me want to make something too so I wrote a fantasy romance movie!" she boasted, hands on her hips and chest puffed out in pride.  
  
"Huh...  add some giant robot dinosaurs and you might be onto something," Dipper mused, tapping his chin.  Some part of his mind did wonder if something unbelievable or tragic had happened to make Stan say he wasn't ready to talk about it.   _Dipper stop._ He thought. _You always do this.  You get carried away with theories and ideas and there's probably a simple explanation.  For once in your life just stop overthinking things._   He cleared his throat, and answered in his typical tone, "But no, he didn't say anything like that.  Actually, most of what he said was that he couldn't say much now but he'd talk about it as soon as he could. "  
  
"Weird...  Well, what did he tell you?"  
  
"Just that the scars came from some really bad criminal-type guy.  He said he had to fight him off because he kept trying to take something important from him," he answered, trying not to let that viral thought loose in his mind.  
  
"You don't think he was talking about Gideon trying to take the Shack, do you?"  Mabel suggested.  
  
"Ha, I wouldn't doubt that creep would do something like bite people to get what he wants," Dipper Joked, though he'd wondered the same thing for a minute himself.  The only context where it made sense, though, was if Stan was using that scenario to lie, using a vague version of that story to cover up some deeper truth.  But, from the tone of his voice, from the creases which deepened around eyes that suddenly appeared exhausted, it seemed like he was telling whatever truth he could.  For the first time in his life, Dipper felt as if Stan had spoken to him like they were both real human beings.  Even if it wasn't honesty, he wanted it to be.  He wanted to believe his great uncle had respected him enough to give him some amount of truth.  With a sigh he added, "but, I don't think it's about Gideon.  I mean, Stan knows that we know about him trying to steal the Shack.  I think he would have just told me if that was it."  
  
As if Mabel could read the trepidation he was trying to squash, she asked, "Do you think he was lying?"  
  
"I don't know.  I mean, he said he wasn't ready to talk about the tattoo and that the details about his scars were..."  His nerves jumped as he lifted his hands to illustrate air quotes, "'nightmare fuel.'"  
  
"Yikes."  
  
"That's what I said.  Anyway, I kind of think he was telling the truth," he explained, his stomach uneasy as he added, "I just hope he's not in a lot of trouble or something.  I hate to admit it but..." a shiver rattled through his limbs as his own truth hit him and spilled out, "I'm worried about him.  
  
"Yeah," Mabel said, fingers fidgeting with her ball of yarn, "Me too."  
  
  
****  
  
Ford waited in his basement cell, fluffing pillows and placing them just so as if he was tidying up his home for his guests.  He glanced between the clock and the security monitor, which had finally been switched back to the gift shop entrance view, for what must have been the thousandth time, his nerves buzzing.  His social anxiety was bad enough before a demon took up residence in his brain and now, he wished he could go lock himself in the bathroom so no one could get hurt.  He looked to the clock again, _twelve am,_ then back to the monitor _, and there she is._  
  
Dr. Braum's rainbow hair and towering stature were unmistakable, even through a grainy security camera feed.  Lottie walked beside her carrying cases and canvas bags.  A third person he didn't recognize trailed behind carrying more cases, likely medical equipment.  He knew they were bringing an anesthesiologist along and had agreed to being put under.  It certainly wasn't something anyone else would consider appropriate for a follow-up appointment but, if the anesthesia prevented Bill from interfering while Dr. Braum removed stitches from his eyelid, he was all for it.  
  
He leaned against the bars, his hands draped over the horizontal support bar, looking for anything to distract him from the buzz of his own nerves.  Usually the medications Stan gave him kept the tightness in his chest at bay but tonight, it was as if he'd skipped them for the day.  
  
He concentrated on his breathing, staring past the patchwork padding of his cell.  With his catastrophic thoughts somewhat interrupted, he focused forward, intently taking in the sight of each of the photos and drawings posted on the wall, of the TV's little blue light illuminating its corner, of the book case loaded in novels, text books, and boxes.  His hands pulsed over the bars, feeling the spongy foam beneath his palms as he breathed deeply again, searching the air for mint and lavender from the planter filled with fragrant herbs and greenery.     
  
Maybe time had gotten away from them.  Maybe it had been twenty years since the last time he'd left the house but Stan really had done everything he could to make the basement room comfortable for him when they discovered he'd have to remain there at all times.  
  
_Was it really that long ago?  1992...  July, I think it was.  Yes.  We went to Greasy's for hamburgers and Susan offered us free 4th of July cupcakes._  
  
It was the last time Ford had seen the outside world, the last time he'd felt the sun and smelled fresh air without struggling to catch a glimpse of it through the fog of possession.  
  
Before then, Bill could only possess him while he slept.  Sleep, though, was never restful thanks to the demon.  It left him exhausted and prone to unexpected naps if he so much as sat down during the day.  In the beginning, he'd lock himself in his bedroom while Stan led tours in the Shack.  But, Bill was noisy and not in a good "ooooh spooky things are happening in this tourist trap" way.  It often disturbed tours and, after the first threat from a tourist who wanted to call the police, the brothers knew the arrangement wasn't working.  It was Ford's idea to build a cell in the basement.  He'd remain locked inside while Stan worked but, at least, in the evenings, he could come upstairs and eat dinner at the kitchen table and even take a walk or continue studying the anomalies around them.    
  
But, it was later that day that Ford felt as if he was being pushed to a dark back corner of his own mind while he was wide awake.  He'd been in the kitchen with Stan, standing at the counter when it happened.  He awoke later in his cell with a bleeding eye and a note from his badly wounded brother.  Stan had to drive himself to an emergency room for stitches that time.  They missed the town's fireworks that night and every other celebration since.  From then on, Ford only left the basement for some time in the sun on the back porch, completely bound physically and mentally locked in his own mindscape.  
  
A knock at his door cut through his thoughts.  He cleared his throat but his, "come in," still squeaked airily over his lingering anxiety.  Stan approached the bars as Dr. Braum and Lottie stepped in behind him.  He couldn't make out the forth figure before darkness clouded his mind.  "S-Stanley," he stuttered, every ounce of his energy resisting being pulled into his own mindscape, "Get back!  He's here-"  
  
With that, he found himself locked away in a dusty room filled with bookcases and mounds of books, bottles, boxes, and scrolls.  He struggled to climb over them, focusing on a blurred pinhole of light that seemed to retreat from his reach no matter the angle of his approach.  All he could do was channel his energy into keeping it open, giving him some view, distorted as it was, of the outside world, worried over what Bill had done, or tried to do, to hurt Stan.  
  
Through the echo of Bill's laughter, filling the mental space he'd been banished to, he strained to hear Stan's voice, garbled and perforated as if it came through static on a radio transmitter.  "That's never happened before," he said.  
  
Ford squinted, trying to see his face through the haze and found it pale in shock.  
  
"What's that?" a probably female voice asked.  
  
"I can mostly tell when you're gonna show up, Bill," Stan said, "but it's just 'cause you're predictable in when you wanna do it.  This is the first time Ford warned me."  
  
It was true.  This was the first time Ford managed to dig his heals in hard enough to fight against Bill for even a moment.  It drained nearly everything out of him but he did it.  It had always taken immense effort just to see what was going on in the outside world when Bill possessed him and he could remember a time when he had no idea what the demon did with his body while he was in control.  But, over the years, he'd learned how to focus his mental energy to see beyond whichever dank corner of his own mind Bill imprisoned him in.  
  
Bill might have learned ways to gain more control over him through the years, but Ford was beginning to understand that he'd been fighting back, finding his own ways to become stronger.  The ability to hold Bill back, even for just a fraction of a second was an enormous success to him.  If he could warn Stan from now on, it meant less cuts, less bruises, and fewer times his own heart would ache.  Maybe it wasn't much but it was a win and Ford was going to take it.  
  
"What, that?" Bill said, "Come on.  He knew I wouldn't let you guys have a party without me.  Of course he knew I was coming."  
  
"No...  No that's a lie!" Ford yelled as if it would help someone hear him, hoping that if Bill left, it would be the first words out of his mouth like every other time he'd shouted for the demon to shut up and found himself thrust back to the forefront of his mind, his body obeying his own commands again.  
  
Instead, with his mental energy drained, he lost his window to the outside world.  He could still hear Bill's voice, like listening to one side of a phone conversation as he said, "Aw, what a shame.  Ford really wanted to talk you you guys.  Something about finding someone to help him clean up this disaster area in his head.  Hey, whoa, careful there.  Don't want to hurt him, do you?"  
  
Ford could only guess they were trying to restrain him.  He had wanted to talk to Dr. Braum about finding a therapist.  Stan had even waited until this follow-up appointment in hopes that they could bring up the topic together and Ford could make decisions for himself based on what they found out.  But Ford was already exhausted, barely holding onto his own consciousness as it was.  
  
"Oh boo hoo," Bill taunted, but something sounded off about his voice.  It was groggy and awkward, matching a sudden swirling and fading of the mindscape around Ford, himself.  "I...  I wouldn't let him talk to his own mother why would I even consider..." the demon's voice trailed off as the world dimmed around Ford.  Through the darkness, Bill spoke again, "Well, they knocked you out, IQ.  I'd wake you up again but it doesn't look like it's worth the effort and, frankly, I have better things to do.  Later, Braniac."  
  
With that, the demon was gone and Ford blacked out.  
  
****  
  
Mabel awoke to a pig snout pressed against her face and lungs deprived of air.  "Ugh, Waddles, you're squishing me," she groaned in as close to a whisper as she could manage.  She rolled him off of her chest and stomach and sat at the edge of her bed, squinting through the darkness to see if her brother was awake.  From the sound of his breathing, the light squeak on each inhale, she deduced he was still asleep.  
  
Waddles nudged her arm, snorting lightly.  
  
"Do you seriously need more food now?" she asked as if he'd answer.  
  
She squished his face and answered for him in a cartoonish voice, "Why yes, Mabel.  I'd like a midnight snack, please."  
  
"Alright, let's get your bowl," she said, slipping off the bed.  Her slippers flopped against the floor followed by the patter of Waddles' hooves as she stepped out of their room.  Through her grogginess, she heard a slam from somewhere outside and stumbled toward the triangular window across from the attic's stairs.  She hoisted herself up onto the bench below and peered through the stained glass finding an SUV parked near the back porch.  Another slam sounded as the vehicle's back door closed.  The engine rumbled to life and the vehicle backed up, turning onto the dirt path and heading away from the Shack.  
  
Waddles chased after her as she jogged down the stairs.  The back door clicked shut and she followed the sound and flicked on the light to find Stan standing there in actual shorts and a button down shirt rather than his boxers and robe.  
  
"Grunkle Stan?  What's going on?" she asked, squinting at him suspiciously, her tangled curls falling forward into her face.  She tried unsuccessfully to blow them away, to keep her overly dramatic threatening facade in place, but they stuck to her lips instead.  
  
"Huh?  Mabel?  What are you doing up?"  He asked like a parent questioning why their child was out after curfew.  
  
"Waddles wanted more food," she answered, pulling the strands away from her face.  She regained her stance, legs stiff and one arm perched on her hip, the other outstretched to point at him as she pried, "What are you doing up?"  
  
"I was just about to go to bed when someone knocked.  Turns out a couple 'a tourists got lost.  I just gave 'em directions to the hotel in town," he explained with a shrug.  
  
"But you're wearing actual clothes.  You never do that!"  
  
"Sure I do.  Sometimes," he said, visibly sweating, his finger tugging at his collar.  "I threw them on to answer the door."  
  
"Since when do you care about that?" Mabel asked, trying to trap him in whatever lie he was weaving, wondering if she needed to be worried about him or angry at him.  
  
"Since now," he huffed.  "Look, I'm tired.  I want to get some sleep.  Go get Waddles his food and get back to bed, alright?"  
  
Her shoulders tensed as she realized she felt both and he'd said nothing to ease her suspicions.  "Fine..." she snorted, reaching up to turn off the light.  
  
  
****  
  
The world felt off, surreal and hazy at the edges.  Between that and the fact that he was apparently lying inside the cardboard and popsicle stick model of the Mystery Shack he'd made, Gideon knew something was definitely not right.   _Did Dipper and Mabel use the size-altering crystal to make me into a...  A mini-me?_   He couldn't rule it out.  He picked himself up and edged toward the window he'd cut with his own hands, looking out to the vast expanse of  his desktop, shielding his eyes from the lamp above, shining down like the noonday sun.  Outside, his models of Dipper, Stan, and Mabel huddled together below a tree made from more popscicle sticks.  But, it was wrong again, though, he thought, in the best way possible.  Their expressions weren't the vacant, crude ones he'd painted.  They were angry, tearful, lost.  
  
Though his grin stretched wide at the sight of Dipper and Stan's distress, Mabel's look of utter hopelessness twisted something inside him.  He pushed on the cardboard flap he'd fashioned as a door, folding it in a wrinkly, lopsided crease, and ran to her, hand outstretched to offer her a deal.  
  
Just as he reached out for her clothespin figure and painted hand, the three figures clattered to the desktop around him, a hairy beast rearing up and trampling them, then stalling before him.  
  
"Cheekums?" he wondered aloud, hand reaching for the soft fur of his pet hamster who stood as large as a house in front of him.  He watched as he turned to face him directly, his nose twitching and eyes closed.  His eyelids eased open and Gideon jumped back at the sight.  
  
"Cheekums!  Your eyes!  What happened to your eyes?!"  
  
They shone bright yellow, so bright it felt as if they pierced him to his soul yet the black void slit down their centers felt empty, as though they threatened to drag his soul from his body and swallow it whole.  The hamster tilted his head, lowering its body as if asking Gideon to climb upon his back.  
  
He gulped audibly, unsure why those eyes sent such a shiver down his spine nor whether he followed the creature's instructions through fear or his own free will.  He wondered why he couldn't feel his suit coat shifting uncomfortably around him nor the strain on his arms as his hands clutched fistfuls of fur to pull himself up but his mind didn't have time to linger.  He'd barely straddled Cheekum's back when the hamster took off, galloping across the desktop and leaping off its edge.  It was as if they flew through the air toward his bed, landing without a sound in the tangled comforter.  
  
His body flopped against the hamster's fur, his hands losing their grip until a final bounce sent him flying from his back, tumbling down into the pillow at the head of his bed.  Even though it wasn't sore, he rubbed his head as if it should be and tried to stand only to stumble forward, catching himself on something propped against the pillow.  He leaned over, looking upside down at Journal 2, opened to the page about the amulet he sorely missed.   _If only that Dipper kid hadn't turned my Mabel against me, I'd still have it and her!  And probably the Shack by now too._  
  
Cheekums nosed at the pages, sending a startled Gideon jumping back with a "Gah" as he managed to turn one then another and another.  When the rustle of paper settled back into silence, Gideon picked himself up again and leaned over the book's spine finding it open to a set of pages he'd spent entire weeks pondering.  He'd memorized every letter of their script, written in meticulous cursive, every age spot and stain, every line of the diagram depicting creature #362 and each nuance of the incantation meant to summon him.  
  
He'd considered it, he'd come close more than once but he wasn't sure exactly what summoning him meant.  Did it simply allow him into their world to do as he pleased?  Would he gain control over the creature, the ability to command him like a minion?  Would he have to make a deal and fulfill some task to gain a favor from the triangular being?  Would it do nothing at all?  No, it would definitely do something.  He'd found more than one magical object mentioned in the book and attempted several of the incantations and each one had worked in some form or another, though they all had a tendency to backfire on him, whether by their own power or someone else's interference.  Why would this one be any different?  
  
Yet, the pages drew him forward, filling him with a desire to lean closer until his feet lifted from his pillow, his tummy pressed against their edges.  He tumbled over the edge, rolling head over heals down the spine.  A dream.  It was a dream.  He'd had this one before and this was usually the point when he'd startle himself awake but this time, he imagined himself holding his breath and let himself fall, watching as visions flashed before him.  
  
Mabel's wide smile, braces glinting in the sunset shifted to a sneer surrounded by glowing green light.  The amulet he'd searched for, that had granted him power beyond his imagination, smashed before his eyes leaving him nearly average.  Dipper shook his fist at him and sent it flying at his face.  He lifted his arm to block but the image splashed and rippled like water as he plummeted through.  He fell past The Mystery Shack, his nemesis, Stanford Pines posed in his suit with his eight-ball cane at the entrance to its museum.  The old man Spotted him, pointed him out to his tour group as a flying pig, and laughed, the sound echoing as though it filled his entire existence.  
  
The image shattered and Gideon screamed and scrambled as a wrecking ball hurtled toward him, stopping inches away from his face before swinging back.  The shattered pieces reassembled and he smiled wide at the sight.  It was everything he'd ever dreamed of.  An enormous statue of himself held a sign that read "Gideonland" above a theme park built in place of the Mystery Shack.  
  
But his descent continued.  He cringed and slammed his eyes shut as he neared the ground but fell straight through.  When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a vast room, dark except for a circle of lit sigils in the center of a massive metal triangle balanced on one of its points.  The center glowed brighter and brighter until a flash burst forward, filling his senses with white light.  
  
As it cleared, he saw himself sitting on a monolithic throne with Mabel at his side, Stanford, Dipper, and the citizens of the town bowing to him below as if he was their king.  
  
Though he wanted to see more, though he swam against it, he fell further down, plunging through the image and landing back on his bed sheets again.  Rubbing his head, he looked up at the journal, slanted against his pillow, to find it opened to a page he'd pondered countless times.  It appeared to be a portion of the plans for some sort of machine.  He'd always figured the missing pieces were in Journal number one, the journal he suspected was hidden in the Mystery Shack somewhere.  He never thought the machine itself might be hidden there but now he wondered exactly what Stanford Pines was hiding.  
  
He awoke safe in his bed, the journal open over his chest to the summoning page for creature 362.  
  
_No.  Not yet_.  He thought.   _I still have more plans to try.  I just need to get into his office._  
  
****  
  
Ford awoke with a start, bolting up, the words, "Stanley!  Did I hurt anyone?" rattling out before the amber light of his cell and pillows piled below his hands could even register in his mind.  The world was blurred without his glasses to the point where he could barely see the bars let alone tell if anyone was in the room beyond them.  
  
"Ford, it's alright," Stan said with an oof.  Ford imagined from the cracking of what was likely his knees that he must have just stood up.  "BILL didn't manage to hurt anyone.  I think the real question here is, are you alright?"  
  
"I-I'm fine," he answered, rubbing the side of his head.  He could have done without Bill mentioning their mother but that was a wound he wasn't currently willing to poke at.  Instead, he simply added, "A little tired, though."  Regardless, he found his way to his feet, hands held before him as he reached for the bars.    
  
"I bet," Stan said.  "Anesthesia aside, is it just me or did you actually manage to hold Bill back long enough to warn me he was here?"  
  
"I-I think so."  
  
"That's...  wow.  Damn," as Stan's failed attempt to string words into a sentence emerged, Ford wondered if he was considering the same implications he had.  
   
"Yeah," he answered, too tired to go into any detail.  His head tipped forward, forehead pressed against the bars as his hands wrapped loosely around them.  He hoped Stan would understand as he explained, "It nearly knocked me out, though."  
  
"I can imagine," he said, seemingly letting the topic go for the moment.  
  
In the pause, something tapped against Ford's hand.  He opened his palm and felt his glasses pressed against it.  As he positioned them on his head he realized his medical patch had been removed.  
  
"Dr. Braum says it's healing just fine," Stan explained, one hand tucked in the pocket of his shorts.  "She says you'll be able to get a prosthetic made up in about another two months or so."  
  
"That's a bit of a relief," Ford admitted.  
  
"Yeah.  Hey, I know you're probably thinking about this so, I did end up asking about a therapist.  Dr. Braum knows a lady who can probably help.  I figure we can make an appointment tomorrow if you want."  
  
"That sounds like a good idea," he said, leaning forward against the bars again.  
  
"Good.  Good..."  Stan hummed, his feet shuffling as his hand withdrew from his pocket.  "So, Ford.  I, uh...  I got somethin' for ya," Stan said, revealing a a small paper bag in his hand and passing it through the bars to his brother.  
  
"Oh, thank you, Stanley," he said, the bag crumpling as he unrolled the top.  Inside was something soft and small, nestled in the bottom.  He tipped the bag on it's side, edging its contents out carefully into the palm of his hand.  As far as he could tell, it was an oval of plain green fleece with hand stitching along its top edge and snaps at the bottom.  He flipped it over, curious as to what exactly Stan had given him.  
  
A small smile lifted his lips as his fingers traced a green octopus cut from the same fleece as the backside and sewn onto the black felt front side.  A single eye, comically large, was embroidered on its head.  A cycloptopus.  Stan had hand sewn him an eye patch and appliqued a cycloptopus onto it.  
  
With no audible reaction, no laughter nor shouts of "what the heck is this?" Stan stumbled to explain, "It's uh...  An eye patch that fits around the lens of your glasses.  It's just a joke, though.  You don't have to wear it.  I got you a real one made of leather here-"  
  
But before he could reach into his pocket again, Ford had already taken off his glasses and was fumbling with the patch, fitting the right lens between the fleece and felt and snapping it in place.  
  
"Seriously, Ford, it's ridiculous, it was just a dumb-"  
  
Ford lifted his glasses over his head, stretching the strap into place, the patch fitting comfortably over his right eye.  "What do you think?" he asked, striking a pose that mocked the heroes on the covers of his books, his chin jutting out and shoulders squared.  "How do I look?"  
  
"You look ridiculous, seriously, take that thing off," Stan said with a chuckle, fumbling in his pocket and retrieving a plain black patch.  "I was just kidding with that, here's the real one."  
  
"No, I like this one and I'm going to wear it," Ford said with a stubborn grin.  
  
"Really?  I have to look at you wearing that thing for two months?"  
  
"It's one of the few advantages to being stuck in a basement," he quipped, "No one else has to see this but you."  
  
"Guess I walked right into that one," Stan chuckled.  "You know I'm not going to be able to take a word you say seriously as long as you're wearing that thing."  
  
"Good.  We need all the levity we can get."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brx'uh jhwwlqj vwurqjhu, LT, exw lw zrq'w pdwwhu vrrq.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Past end notes decoded ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
>  
> 
> As mentioned in the end notes of the last chapter, there's an aspect to The Man Downstairs AU that might need to be addressed. It's meant to be a gen fic so there might be questioning about whether things have been censored to keep it that way. They actually haven't been but, the truth is... not good either. Here's the short version: Bill tormented Ford physically, psychologically, and emotionally, but in my personal canon for this AU, he did not abuse him sexually.
> 
> I've written a short chapter to explain things but will keep it as a companion piece in a separate link so anyone who doesn't want further details and would prefer to just be relieved that Bill didn't take things that far doesn't have to see it. It doesn't affect anything in the course of events in the main plot but does contribute to the complexities of Ford's emotional and psychological state. It doesn't contain anything too explicit, just a few suggestive bits. Everything is kept fairly vague but it IS a discussion of the topic and I realize that can be uncomfortable. Warnings for mature conversation, emotional abuse, poor self-image, and complicated, confusing emotions. 
> 
>  
> 
> [ click here to read ](https://sta.sh/01l5z4s1c87h)


	20. Bonus chapter - Ma Pines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford needs a moment to nurse the wound Bill reopened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is visual proof that I am the biggest liar in this fic. Mabel's POV is coming, I promise. I wasn't expecting to write this part yet but since it's Mother's Day, I wanted to talk a bit about the role Ma Pines played in everything. She did the best she could for her boys and even Bill couldn't get in her way. Thanks to her, their lives were brighter for many years.
> 
> Special thanks to [ DarrowWyrlde ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarrowWyrlde/pseuds/DarrowWyrlde) for mentioning origami as a thing Ford could do.
> 
> Warnings - past character death is discussed. This is not exactly a happy piece but it has hopeful and positive moments and it's meant to honor their mother and all she did for them.

Later that night, Stan stepped out for a bit, saying he'd be gone for about two hours or so.  Ford said not to worry about him, that he'd probably just fall asleep for a while anyway.  But, even as exhausted as he was, Ford couldn't sleep.  Bill had reopened a wound he couldn't ignore.  
  
It was as if Stan knew something wasn't right.  No, he'd heard Bill earlier.  Not only did he know but he was likely feeling some of the same things Ford was.  He returned in a little more than an hour, his shorts splotched in mud and a Polaroid camera strapped around his neck.  "You doin' alright?" he asked.  
  
Ford stood at the bars, his hands wrapped loosely around them and managed a mumbled "I'm alright" as he stared up at a photo of Stan and himself together with their mother from 1991.  Despite her age, she'd continued dyeing her hair black, wearing giant hoop earrings and lipstick to match her bright red slip and tank dresses.  
  
"I miss her too," Stan whispered, reaching out to trace the photo's simple wooden frame.  It was one of the few which had a frame at all.  As the memorabilia collected over the years and the wall space lessened, Stan and Ford began to value more photos over fancy frames and used the wall more like a giant bulletin board, posting everything from letters to the woven potholders Dipper and Mabel had mailed to them when they were five.  
  
"He didn't even let me say goodbye," Ford murmured, his hands sliding down the padded bars to rest on the horizontal support bar.  
  
"Maybe not verbally, but she loved the origami flowers you made for her," Stan said, "And, even if Bill was being an ass, she was glad she got to see you again."  
  
"That wasn't me..."  
  
_Why did Bill even have to bring that up?_ Stan wondered.  Because of course he had to.  Of course he had to dig his claws in and twist them for good measure.  Of course he had to remind them why it was futile to tell anyone they cared for about their situation.  
  
Except, he knew it wasn't.  Maybe it was tough to convince Ford because he literally couldn't see things clearly.  He couldn't see how happy she was to receive his gifts and letters, he couldn't see that she still loved him even if a demon was forcing his hands to lash out at her.  All he could see was himself being a danger to her, causing her heartache, and bringing tears to her eyes.  Stan tried to tell him but he knew that even though Ford had grown to trust him, trusting and believing he was lying as a kindness to spare his feelings were two different things.  
  
But, it wasn't like they had a choice in telling her.  Ma was the greatest liar they'd ever known, able to make anyone believe that the sun rose in the west if she wanted to.  But, with that, came the ability to spot a lie and she could see through Stan's before he'd finished a full sentence.  
  
It was 1983 when the twins had agreed Stan should fake his death and take on Ford's name.  Ford knew even then that he was far too unstable to continue living a public life nor to live one of complete hermitude.  Offering Stan his identity as an escape from his old life was the least he could do to repay him for his help.  
  
The plan, surprisingly, had gone off without a hitch.  Everyone believed Stanley Pines died in a fiery car crash.  Everyone, except for ma.  
  
She'd had a feeling from the moment Stan called her with the news.  The second she'd heard his impersonation of Ford she'd said "Stanley, why are you talking like that?  Do you have a sore throat?"  
  
He'd lied and said, "Very perceptive, ma.  I do indeed have a bit of a cold at the moment, but this is Stanford.  I'm calling because I have some terrible news."  
  
She didn't believe him, even as he hung up.  With that in mind, Stan and Ford devised a story for her sake, one where Ford had been injured in the car crash and used his dying breath to tell Stan to take his identity and use it to escape his old life.  They both knew it was unlikely it would fool her but it was worth a try.  How would she ever believe the truth?  
  
As Stan prepared for the funeral, wrapping his hands in gauze to convince everyone he'd just had surgery to remove his sixth finger, he knew it would be one of the toughest cons he'd have to pull off.  At least pa probably wouldn't be there.  Ma kicked him out not too long after Ford left for college and, while he still ran the pawn shop downstairs, he lived in an apartment across the street and rarely spoke to the family.  
  
It was some consolation that Ford told Stan that even if pa did show up, it would be out of character for "Stanford" to show any respect to the man.  He'd been harder on Ford than ever after kicking Stan out, making him believe his only worth was in whatever fame and fortune he could bring to the family, making him believe he'd be disowned just as easily for any small slip-up and Ford had grown to resent it.  He told Stan it would be seen as normal if he didn't even speak to him and that pa would likely make no effort on his end.  
  
Stan was surprised that he did show up, though he was relieved that he kept to himself, sitting at the back and ducking out before saying so much as a word to anyone.  
  
But ma was another story.  The second she saw Stan she hugged him tight and whispered in his ear, "I knew you were alive, Stanley, but tell me quick.  Is Stanford?"  
  
"I'm sorry," he whispered back.  With the tremble in his arms and sniffling of his nose, he hoped his act was convincing.  
  
"Liar," she whispered, pulling away.   
  
Even so, she went along with the ruse, playing the part of the grief-stricken mother throughout the funeral to the point where Stan was touched that anyone might be so upset at the thought of losing either him or Ford.  After the family dispersed, she invited him to come back home so they could talk alone.  
  
It was surreal to be back.  Hardly anything was the same.  The whole upstairs had been remodeled and updated.  Black appliances and sleek white cabinets filled the kitchen.  Their old bedroom had been transformed into a proper office for Ma's growing psychic phone service.  A red leather sofa faced a black entertainment center in the living room and a new rug, swirled in zebra and leopard print, stretched across the restored hardwood floor.  The whole place reeked of chocolate and cigarettes but the one thing that remained the same was the neon pink light cast across the apartment from the sign in the window, advertising her business.  
  
Ma poured two cups of coffee and invited Stan to sit on the sofa beside her.  She handed him a mug, the one with a logo for Glass Shard Amusement Park that he'd often used as a teenager, claiming she kept it close because it reminded her of him.  A light smile lifted his cheeks but sagged the moment she spoke again.  
  
"So, Stanley, are you ready to tell me what's really going on?" she asked.  
  
He tried to keep to his lie, to the story he and Ford had agreed upon but his words faltered.  
  
All ma had to do was raise an eyebrow and Stan knew he'd better come clean or she'd never let him hear the end of it.  
  
He gave in with a sigh and tried to explain, "You know how Ford was always trying to find weird monsters and stuff as a kid?  Well, he found one and now he can't fall asleep without getting possessed by a demon."  
  
"Now that, I believe," she said.  
  
She'd gone on to offer her support, saying she'd leave her home, her business, her clients, and her local reputation all behind if it meant she could do anything to help her boys.  While some part of Stan would have been happy to have his mother back again, he knew Ford was right.  It was too dangerous.  Besides, he knew Ford would agree that it was too much to ask for her to leave her entire life behind.  
  
He assured her they were doing the best they could, that they'd be alright and just needed some time.  She didn't believe him but agreed to stay (mostly) physically out of the way and to keep their secret.  She did visit from time to time, though Stan insisted she stay at the hotel in town for her own safety.  They'd meet up for meals and walks in the woods while Ford guzzled enough coffee to keep a sedated cat awake, though, it concerned her that his mind and memory were noticeably deteriorating.  
  
While they were apart, she'd call anytime she caught wind of any rituals or incantations that might help free her son from the monster or any sort of potion that might help him sleep a little easier.  They wrote to each other often and sometimes spent hours on the phone together throughout the 1980's.  It was because of her that they kept trying, kept moving forward, kept experimenting with anything that so much as sounded like it could keep Bill away.  
  
Eventually, when their father died, she sold the pawn shop and retired from her psychic services.  With Stan's help, she packed up and moved west to live with Shermy.  It seemed, at first, like she'd be able to visit more often but their dinner together in '91, the night the framed photo was taken, was the last time Ford saw her without a demon standing in the way.  
  
When Bill gained control over his waking hours, they advised her to stay away for her own safety.  Besides that, her pack-a-day smoking habit was finally catching up to her.  But still, they exchanged post cards and gifts as often as possible until the summer of 1997.  She knew she had little time left and showed up in the back of a cab at the Mystery Shack one day.  Though Stan visited her whenever he could, she wanted to see Ford at least one last time.  
  
They tried.  Stan brought her to the basement but before Ford could so much as catch a glimpse of her, Bill forced him to lash out through the bars.  Stan escorted her out as gently as he could but the damage was already done.  Ford thought he must have terrified her.  Stan couldn't convince him that she was simply happy to be in the same room with him, even under the worst of circumstances.  Ford couldn't hear her when she thanked him for the bouquet of paper flowers or for the drawing of them all together.  She'd left him a letter with all she'd wanted to say, a letter filled with kind words and memories, stories of their childhood and gratitude for telling her the truth and continuing to include her in their lives.    
  
He'd written a similar one to her, or rather, Stan had written his words and she'd thanked them for it.  
  
Stan drove her back home and returned with the news that she'd passed away that night.  It was then that Ford swore he'd never let anyone else near him, never let anyone else be hurt but it didn't take much to see that he never wanted to be hurt like that again either.  
  
With a sigh, Stan took the frame down from the wall and removed the back, pulling out her letter to Ford.  He'd read it to his brother many times before and he'd gladly do it again for both of their sakes if he had to.  
  
"Bill thinks he won that day.  He thinks he stopped you from seeing her one last time but the truth is, because of him, we have this," Stan said, unfolding the letter.  "We have her words in her own writing to remind us how much she loved us and she had the same from us.  You know all those flowers you made for her?  Shermy still has them.  He won't get rid of them because he said even though he never knew who sent them to her, they meant so much to her that she'd probably find a way to haunt him for disrespecting them."  
  
"She did so much for us, Stan.  She kept our secret.  She checked up on us.  Hell, she called Greasy's and had them deliver food to us sometimes.  Maybe things were rough for a few years while we were all afraid of dad but she's the one who finally stood up to him."  
  
"She said she'd kick Bill in his eye if she could.  Heh," Stan added, his laugh trailing off as he remembered there was still a bit of rum in a bottle in the trunk.  Rather than rereading the letter, he placed it back in the frame, hung it on the wall and lifted the trunk's lid.  He pulled out the bottle and split what was left between two paper cups.  He handed one to Ford and lifted his own, a warm smile lighting up his face.  "To ma," he toasted, "We're glad you were a part of our lives."  
  
"To ma," Ford added, "For always being there for us."  
  
With that, they drank, honoring her for her love and support over the years, for making their lives brighter just by being a part of them, for simply being who she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brxu prwkhu zdv vrphwklqj hovh. Vkh vdlg vkh zdv jrlqj wr nlfn pb dvv dqg, iru d plqxwh, L eholhyhg khu.


	21. Lies and Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel wonders if she should be worried about Stan or angry at him. One too many lies pushes her toward angry but she needs to know for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Eh, I don't actually think there are any this time. It's kind of a family fluff chapter, really. Or well, maybe more like some family tension and everyone not being their best selves that will lead to fluff. Probably. Maybe.
> 
> ~Finally, Mabel's POV is here! There's a short clip of Stan's at the beginning and again at the end but this chapter is pretty much all about our favorite glitter child's thoughts and actions.
> 
> ~Look! There's adorable and awesome art [ here ](https://cthulhu-of-the-night.tumblr.com/post/173930880533/rum-and-shattered-dreams-i-wanted-to-draw-the) and [ here ](https://killhitleragain.tumblr.com/post/173935559124/rum-and-shattered-dreams-reblogged-some-fanart-of) from chapter 19! Thank you both for these!
> 
> ~Speaking of last week, I heard there was an issue with the comments over the weekend where no one could submit any so I'd super appreciate hearing any feedback on the last two chapters if anyone would like to share. It really helps spark ideas for future chapters and gets me thinking about things I might otherwise have neglected or not even thought of. 
> 
> ~And with that in mind, thanks again to everyone who has commented or listened to me babble about this or suggested ideas. They've all been helpful! All of the kudos on this go to y'all too for your help!

Stan yawned his way through the elevator ride back upstairs, the weight of the camera hanging around his neck drawing him down into more of a slouch than usual.  Another night of catching only a few hours of sleep on the air mattress in the basement left him dragging his feet, nearly losing one of his sandals with every step up the stairs.  At least he had proof of his excuse for being out of his room this time.  If he got lucky enough that the kids didn't notice he was gone, he'd even be able to save it for next time.    
  
_I was kind of short with Mabel about well...  wearing actual shorts,_ he thought, glancing down at his mud-splotched shorts and shirt.  He shook his head as if to flick the thought away.   _She'll be fine.  Probably just thinks I was just being a cranky old man.  Does this mean I'll have to actually start caring about whether I answer the door in my underwear or not...?  Nah._  
  
He stepped out from behind the vending machine to find the gift shop cast in shadows and the dim glow of predawn streaming through the door's window.  In the direct center of the light cast across the floor was a darkened dirt trail of his own footprints leading from the entrance right to where he stood.   _Idiot.  Thought of everything but that, didn't you?_  He cursed himself.  Shit,  _I hope they didn't see that._  He panicked, his heart picking up tempo. _What am I gonna tell them?  Maybe they weren't up.  If they were, why would they be in here anyway?  There's no reason for them to be here except snooping on me...  And if they were, I'll just have to tell them to keep out of my business!  Ugh like that will ever work...  They'll just snoop on me more!  I hope I got time to clean this up before- Uh oh._  
  
He mentally thanked Soos for forgetting to oil the hinges on the living room door.  It gave him just enough time to turn back to the vending machine and pretend to close the front up before anyone could see him.  
  
****  
  
Mabel awoke to something nudging the side of her head and light puffs tickling her hair.  She wrinkled her nose at the smells of stale breath, mildew, and sweaty socks overtaking the sweet scent of her blue raspberry shampoo and the fragrant flower detergent she'd washed her sheets in the other day.  
  
"Waddles what's going on?" she moaned, rolling over on her back as his snout ceased it's assault on her hair and ear so he could climb onto her pillow.  His hooves tapped against the bedside table and she leapt up just in time to catch her lamp before he knocked it over, trying to get a look at the dim glow outside the window.  
  
"Mabel?" Dipper mumbled, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.  "What time is it?"  
  
"It's we-should-all-still-be-asleep-o'clock.  Sorry Dip-Dop.  I think Waddles wants to go outside," her words were perforated by oofs and acks as she wrestled the pig away from the window and set him on the floor.  "Guess I shouldn't have gotten him that midnight snack, huh?"  
  
"Midnight snack?" Dipper asked with a yawn, as if he was too tired to understand what the words meant.  
  
"Yeah..." Mabel answered, uncertain if words had any meaning to her own sleepy mind.  She paused for a moment, waiting for her thoughts and memories to boot up in her brain.  As if vocalizing the sound effect of her own personal start up screen, she snapped, "Oh yeah!  That's right.  Something weird happened last night."  
  
"Oh really?" Dipper began, excitement washing away his grogginess with every word.  "What was it?  Weird noises, objects moving on their own, lights turning on and off?"  
  
"Dipper," Mabel's voice went unacknowledged as she slid off the side of the bed, straightened her nightshirt, and stretched.  Dipper's increasing excitement blurred together while she watched Waddles prance over to the door and look up at it like a begging puppy.   
  
"Was it a ghost?  Is the shack haunted?" he continued, practically bouncing off the side of his bed to pace the floor beside it.  "Oh man, the journal talks all about this, what category do you think it was?  Imagine us finding real proof of a ghost!"  
  
"Dipper!"  
  
"Huh, what?  Not a ghost?"  
  
"Uh-uh," she said, shaking her head and walking toward the door.  
  
"Well what then?" Dipper asked, watching her pass by the closet.  "Wait!  Was it the closet?" he added sarcastically, "Don't tell me you still think there's something living in there."  
  
"Pfft!  There's definitely something in that closet," she said, her mind wandering to the weird feeling she had when she first opened it to hang up her clothes.  The smell was so rancid that she'd left it open every day for a week and when it still didn't air out, she decided her suitcase was a perfectly fine place to keep all of her sweaters for the summer.  That aside, the air felt damp and warmer than it should be, as if someone's breath hung upon it, and she could never shake the feeling that someone was watching her whenever the door was open.  She tore her vision away from the cracked and weathered door, her train of thought finding its way back to its tracks.  "But no," she said, reaching for the attic door and causing Waddles to stand up, his backside wagging in anticipation.  "I'm not talking about that."  
  
"Then what?" Dipper's question halted Mabel's hand and Waddles practically whined as he sat back down beside the door.  "A leprecorn?  Zombies?  Werewolves?  Zombie werewolves?  A doomsday device hidden in a secret lab in the woods?!  Oh no, please tell me it wasn't more gnomes!"  
  
"Calm down," Mabel said, turning back to rest her hands on his vibrating shoulders.  "It's just that, remember when we were wondering about Grunkle Stan acting weird with all those midnight snacks and being up in the middle of the night and stuff?  Well, when I got up, I heard a car door and looked out that window with the stained glass eye on it and there was a car parked outside that I've never seen before.  Grunkle Stan said it was some tourists who got lost."  
  
"Oh," he answered, his shoulders drooping in both relief and disappointment.  "Well, that's not that weird, I guess.  I'm sure people take wrong turns at night and end up out here sometimes."  
  
"Dipper, Grunkle Stan was wearing shorts and an actual shirt!"  
  
"Wait, what?" he asked, his lip curling up in disbelief.  
  
"Right?  He said he put them on to answer the door," Mabel explained, opening their door only to have it bop her in the face as Waddles wiggled through.  
  
Dipper tapped his chin, muttering, "Since when does he care about-"  
  
"That's what I said!" Mabel interrupted, rubbing her sore nose and wondering if she'd have unsightly bruise later.  "Then he acted all weird and mean and told me to just go to bed."  
  
"Aw.  I'm sorry, Mabel.  Come on, let's go find out what's going on around here," Dipper said, leading the way out to the attic hall to find Waddles waiting at the top of the stairs for them, snorting indignantly.  "Aaaand let Waddles outside for a bit."  
  
In the shadows cast by Dipper's flashlight, Mabel followed him downstairs with Waddles at her side.  Just as her toes hit the ground floor and Dipper turned toward the back door, a light thump, like the sound of a refrigerator door closing sounded from somewhere behind them, muffled by the shack's wooden walls.  
  
"What was that?"  Dipper asked.  
  
Waddles perked up and turned around, heading toward the living room.  
  
"I don't know but Waddles seems to think it came from this way," Mabel said, following his lead.  She crept through the living room nearly blindly, relying on one of her hands pressed against Waddle's back for guidance and the light from the aquarium to distinguish the darkened blob that was Stan's chair and the shadowy blotch of the TV.  Waddles stopped at the gift shop door, sniffing at the crack below it.  The beam from Dipper's flashlight caught up with her, casting shadows of herself and Waddles on the door as she reached for its knob.  It creaked as she opened it as if protesting her attempt to keep it quiet.   
  
She squinted to see through the dim light of predawn to find Stan, still wearing his shorts and shirt, standing in front of the vending machine with one hand pressed firmly against its glass front.  
  
"Doop de doo, fixin' the vending machine..." he sang.  
  
Mabel rubbed her eyes, sidestepping awkwardly as Waddles wiggled past her.  "Grunkle Stan?"  
  
"Oh, Mabel, Ah hey ack!" he spat, covering his eyes as Dipper accidentally shone his flashlight right into them.  
  
"Oh man, sorry!  Sorry, Grunkle Stan," he said, fumbling with the light and flicking it off.  
  
"Dipper?  What are you two gremlins- Ah, hey, watch it," he complained as Waddles sniffed at his shorts and sandals then followed his footprints to the exit like a bloodhound.  "Heh heh," he laughed nervously, watching the pig roll over in the trail near the door.  "What'cha doing up so early?"  
  
"Waddles wanted to go outside then I think he heard you in here and made me follow him," Mabel explained, reaching for the light switch and flicking it on.  
  
"Ah ugh!  It's too early for things to be that bright," Stan complained.  "Can't a guy work in the semi-dark, suspiciously early hours of the morning in peace?"  
  
"Uh-uh," Dipper and Mabel answered, shaking their heads and crossing their arms in unison.  
  
"What are you up to, Grunkle Stan?" Dipper asked his tone torn between accusation and worry.  
  
"Yeah, you've been acting all weird-o-ly lately," Mabel added, her voice and thoughts as torn as her brother's.  
  
"I've been having trouble sleepin' for a few days.  Insomnia, am I right?" he said with a chuckle, scratching the back of his head.  "Anyway, I went out to try to get some photos for exhibits again.  I just got back and saw there was a bag of Cheese Boodles stuck in the machine and thought I'd fix it before headin' back upstairs to see if I could catch an hour or two of sleep before we gotta open for the day."  
  
Mabel eyed the footprints from where Waddles had settled by the door to where Stan stood in mud-spotted clothes with a camera hanging around his neck.  His story added up but something about the quiver in his voice as he told it felt off.  Though she was unconvinced, some part of her still wanted to give him a chance just as much as some part of her worried over the darkening bags under his eyes and the added slouch to his posture.  Even so, she couldn't hide the suspicion in her voice when she asked, "Did you get anything good this time?"  
  
"Well, I didn't wanna mess around tonight so I grabbed the Polaroid," Stan said, lifting his camera to show it off, "'an I think I actually did get something good this time."  Stepping over to the checkout counter, he reached into his pocket and pulled out several blurry and darkened photos.  
  
Mabel glanced at Dipper, unsure what to believe.  He simply shrugged and followed Stan to the checkout counter.  She guessed it worth giving Stan the chance to explain himself.  
  
As she stepped forward, Waddles scratched at the exit, whimpering.  "Just one more minute, Waddles, please?"  She begged.  He huffed at her but sat back down, waiting as patiently as he could.  
  
She followed her brother's lead, leaning over the counter to see several photos of blotched blackness.  
  
"What do you kids think?" Stan asked, "Most of 'em are no good but what about this one?" he added, separating out one that was fairly well focused and showed a clear shape of something tall and skinny in a clearing between two trees.  "I fell in a mud puddle after snapping that one but I think it was worth it.  Whatever that thing was was gone when I took this one."  He showed them one more photo, a shot of the same clearing with nothing in it.  
  
"Whoa!"  Dipper said, grabbing the first photo from Stan's hand and staring intently at it.  "That looks like the Hide-Behind!  I read all about it in...  In this book I got at the library when you took us to town a bit back...  Probably should return that one...  heh.  Gonna have to pay a late fee..." he rambled, tugging at the stretched out collar of his shirt nervously.  
  
Mabel rolled her eyes.  It was bad enough that she thought Stan might be hiding things from them.  Knowing Dipper had become secretive over the past few weeks about that journal he found in the woods just added to her frustration.  What was the big deal anyway?  Was he worried that Stan would think it was too dangerous for him to have it and take it away?  Was he growing possessive of the knowledge he thought it gave him, of the power he thought it held to fight threats, of the discoveries he thought he could find, record, and share with the world someday?  Or was he just afraid someone would see that he'd turned it into his own diary?   _Dear diary, last night I dreamed that Wendy held my hand and then we had to fight a magic flying squidolphin._   She thought, her internal monologue mocking her brother's voice in her head.  _Ha ha.  What a dork._  
  
Dipper's secret aside, she still wanted to find out what Stan was hiding, if anything.  She sneaked up beside Dipper and snatched the photo from his hand, eliciting a "hey!" from him.  She lifted her foot, pressing it against his chest as he reached past it, arms flailing to grab the photo as she stared calmly at it, rubbing her chin.  
  
"I guess it does look like something is there," she admitted, torn between thinking the object looked like a branch hanging from one of the trees and thinking it was had an eerie air to it, like it had turned to look straight at the camera.  "But," she continued, "If it's fake, do we really have to lie about something else just for an exhibit?"  
  
"It ain't lying," Stan stammered, accepting the photo as she handed it to him.  
  
Dipper's arms sagged as she lowered her foot.  He adjusted his shirt and straightened his shoulders in what looked like an attempt to regain some sense of being cool.  
  
Stan gathered up the photos and said, "Think of it as acting.  Even if those rubes, I mean customers, come here 'cause they think this stuff is real, what they really want is a show.  They want to be entertained.  Whether that means getting a good laugh 'cause something is obviously fake or wondering if something else might actually be real, that's up to them."  His awkward grin fell flat when all she did was sigh in response.  
  
Her shoulders slouched as she walked to the door and held it open for Waddles.  With an excited squeal, he leapt up and trotted through.  She followed him and said, "It still sounds like lying to me," before closing the door.  
  
Behind it, she could hear Stan ask, "What's gotten into her?"  
  
"I don't know," Dipper answered, his concern melting quickly as he shifted the subject back to the photos, "Did that thing make any noises or anything?  How big was it really?"  
  
She sighed again and sat on the bottom step, watching Waddles paw at the dirt under a bush by the forest's edge.   _What's gotten into me?  What's gotten into them?!_ Now she wasn't sure which she was more of, angry at their lies and secrets, worried about them both, or some combination of annoyed and upset that Stan had snapped at her last night and she'd told Dipper about it only to have him forget because of a photo that may or may not contain a cryptid.  
  
Whatever it was, she didn't like the overall cruddy feeling inside her overtaking her usual cheerfulness.  
  
  
****  
  
The evening sun shone in bright beams between the trees as Mabel stepped over roots and around bushes.  She glanced at the traced drawing in her hand and back up at the towering trees.  Waddles huffed and snorted beside her, his snout nearly pressed against the ground.  
  
It's not a complete lie, right, Waddles?" she asked, swatting a mosquito away.  "I am going to Candy's house.  I'm just...  making a detour along the way, right?"  
  
"That's right Mabel.  Lying is wrong and you'd never lie to your family like they do," she spoke for him in a deeper voice.    
  
"Ugh!  Stupid Grunkle Stan and his stupid lies," she spat, her arms flailing through what seemed like a swarm of mosquitoes.  "He could have gotten arrested pretending that bear was a service animal!  Lying to me and Dipper is one thing but lying to the police!  Now I know he's got to be hiding something else!  You know it too, don't you Waddles?"  She said, digging in her tote bag for some mosquito spray.  
  
"I sure do, Mabel," she bent down to make it seem more like her voice was his.  
  
She stood at her full height again and sprayed her arms with the pungent citronella repellent, sneezing as it masked the earthy smell of soil beneath her feet.  As she reached back to her bag, she caught a glimpse of the bites scattered up her arm and would have sworn it spelled out "kamily is fey" but even if it did, she had no idea what that was supposed to mean.  
  
She stretched her legs to step over a patch of oddly glowing mushrooms and continued her rant.  "I bet Stan did lie to Dipper about not wanting to talk about his tattoo and where those scars came from.  I bet he was lying about those midnight snacks too but why?  What is he up to?  ARGH.  I sound like Dipper now!  And it's not like Dipper's any better what with hiding that journal from Grunkle Stan.  Oh well.  At least we'll put it to some good use, right Waddles?”  
  
"That's right Mabel.  This is a great idea, oink oink."  
  
"Yeah.  It is a great idea.  Thanks, Waddles.   Let's see," she said, looking at the notes she'd copied from the journal, "It said the truth teeth were buried under a tree stump somewhere around..." her voice lingered on the word as her eyes scanned the ground, passing over bushes and grass until, "There!" she shouted.  In a beam of sun, as if the clearing was trying to shine a spotlight on it, was a hollowed out felled tree lying beside its mushroom and moss covered stump.  "That's got to be it.  Try digging here, waddles," she requested, pointing to the rotted out roots.  
  
As Waddles dug, splattering dirt and chunks of bark behind him, she reread the author's notes about the magical item aloud, "'I'm going to rebury them.  I believe honesty is the best policy except for when it's not.  Which is often.'  Yeesh.  Sounds like this guy was a liar too.  Oh but one with good taste, she added as Waddles unearthed a varnished wooden box with swirling floral details carved carefully on its lid.  
  
Waddles stepped aside to let her lift it from the hole.  "Thanks, Waddles," she said, patting him on his head and offering him a few Cheese Boodles as a treat.  Dusting off the lid she added, "This is perfect.  Now we can get the truth from Grunkle Stan once and for all!"  
  
****  
  
One second Stan was lazing on a lawn chair in a shady spot beside his own private pool and the next, he was underwater, arms flailing as the surface drifted farther away.  He struggled for a breath, his lungs aching until he awoke with a gasp laying on his back in his mattress's worn out crater.  A hand moved away from his nose and he breathed deeply, detecting a hint of blue raspberry before sputtering, "What? What's going on? Huh?"  He bolted upright to find Mabel standing beside his bed, framed in light from the hallway streaming through his open door.  Before he could even think, he asked, "Mabel?"  
  
"Quick question," she said pointing an accusatory finger at him, "What happened to Dipper's spaghetti plate?"  
  
The answer fell out unedited, as if he couldn't help but vocalize his internal monologue and feelings he didn't even know he had.  "I ate it because I have little to no concern about other people's possessions or emotions."  
  
He would have sworn his heart skipped a beat.  "That was strangely candid," he said, his thoughts pouring out uncensored yet again, "Almost as if I am unable to lie."  He snapped his mouth shut, willing his mind to blank out before he could say anything more.  "Well, good night," he blurted and rolled over, his heart pounding against his ribs in triple-time as he suppressed any further thoughts.  
  
From the sound of his door clicking shut, he hoped Mabel was satisfied that he'd fallen back asleep.  After a few excruciatingly long moments of silence, he rolled over to find nothing but darkness.  Even the crack around the door fell dark as the hall light flicked off.  
  
He sat up again, letting out a momentary sigh of relief before terror struck him again.  
  
"What just happened?" he asked himself.  "Uh-oh..."  
  
It suddenly hit him that there were teeth in his mouth and he knew he'd taken out his dentures before falling asleep.  He turned, rubbing his sore back as the book he'd been reading flopped off the side of the bed.  His feet pressed against the floor and his fingers stretched out toward his night stand.  Reaching its edge, they fumbled around until they nearly tipped over his lamp.  He followed its rounded shape up to the switch and flicked it on to find exactly what he was afraid of.  
  
His dentures were still in their cup.  
  
"Oh no.  Shitshitshitshitshit.  Ford warned me about these damn things," he grumbled to himself, his fingers tracing the teeth in his mouth.  He tugged at them, gently at first then with all the force he could muster but they wouldn't budge.  
  
"Damn, his theory was right.  Only the person who put them in can take them out again!  Ugh, what am I gonna do?" he moaned, covering his face with his hands.  "Wait," he breathed, lowering his hands to drape over his knees.  "It's not completely true that I don't care about other people's possessions and emotions...  At least...  Not all the time.  It was just true in the case of Dipper's spaghetti..." he reasoned with himself, the taste of oregano and rosemary still fresh in his mind.  "But it was so good I couldn't stop eating it...  What does the kid put in his tomato sauce anyway?"  
  
He shook his head as if trying to realign his thoughts.  Suddenly, a realization clicked into place like that piece of a jigsaw puzzle that was hidden under the table.  With a chuckle he muttered, "Truth is complicated, isn't it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vlr erjxkp xob tbfoa.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Previous end codes decoded here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
>  
> 
> ~I'm probably going to take a week off from updating after this chapter. I seriously need to fix up the garden so all of my plants don't die :O. But, I'll be back in June with more of Dipper, Mabel, and Gideon's POV's and more and more canon divergence until this completely breaks away into its own path. It's kinda like tearing a bandage off slowly... >_<
> 
> ~Yeah... this chapter's title is named after a L'Arc~en~Ciel song.


	22. Truth Is Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan's a great conman and but can he hide everything while under the influence of the Truth Telling Teeth? Ford's reaction to his predicament isn't exactly what he expected but Bill's is exactly what he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~Poll question! (A quick multiple choice one) Click here to pick what you'd like to have happen to Bill at the end of this fic!~~ Edit - Poll closed. Thanks to everyone who voted!
> 
> Warnings: Possible gross out moments but nothing too descriptive. Mention of suicidal ideation. Mention and threat of broken bones. Mention of kidney stones (I add because I've had them before... Fun times.)
> 
> Sorry this is a little late, I screwed up and lost several hours of editing at the last minute and had to redo a bunch of stuff.  
> Thanks so much again to everyone who has commented and contributed art and ideas! I appreciate it more than I can express in words! Also, special thanks to [ bill-beauxquais ](http://bill-beauxquais.tumblr.com/) and star and crossbones for their help with working things out in this chapter.

It took Mabel far too long to fall asleep that night, her head brimming with questions she wanted to ask while her Grunkle couldn't lie.  She rolled from side to side, her legs tangling in her sheets and her creativity kicking into overdrive as she imagined what outlandish answers he might give.  She finally found sleep sometime between envisioning him sneaking out at night because he was really a secret agent working to protect sentient stuffed animals from toy industry spies and wondering if he'd tell Dipper he got those scars and his tattoo when he helped save the goblin kingdom from an evil overlord who'd put a bounty on his head for daring to oppose him.  
  
She awoke, later than usual, to a beam of sunlight streaming through a cloud of dust below the attic window.  Waddles was still curled up on her legs, his breath squeaking in slow rhythm as he slept.  Dipper's bed, however, stood empty, its sheets wadded along its side and its pillow scrunched against the wall.  Mabel bolted out of bed, nearly sending Waddles flying off its end as she wondered if her brother had already gotten any answers from Stan.  Too anxious to bother with brushing her teeth, changing out of her nightshirt, or untangling her hair, she jogged downstairs with Waddles trotting beside her.  
  
Her socks pelted against the wooden floor in time with the flutter of her heart as she followed a sizzling sound and something that smelled smoky and greasy into the kitchen.  Dipper sat at the table in his shirt and shorts, his matted and frizzed curls highlighted in golden sun from the window behind him.  His eyes closed as he leaned on one hand, his elbow propped on the table.  
  
Mabel's cheerful "Morning!" elicited no more than a grunt from Stan as he hunched over the stove, one hand stuffed in an oven mitt and gripping an iron skillet, the other using a wooden spoon to shuffle something around inside it.  His half-lidded eyes didn't so much as glance at her while she sped by.  
  
As she pulled out her chair, Dipper's cheek slid from his hand, his head drooping before he jerked himself awake again.  "Huh?  Quiz?  What quiz!" he sputtered, his entire body stiffening.  
  
"Whoa, bad dream?" Mabel asked, settling into her chair, the one she recognized as hers thanks to the metal leg that had worn through its rubberized foot etching another scratch into the wooden floor as she moved it closer to the table.  At least it wasn't squeaky like the one Dipper used, thanks to Stan and herself joking that it matched his voice, and it wasn't nearly as bad as the wobbly backed one Stan used.  Too bad no one ever used the fourth chair.  It looked pristine, as though no one had done anything aside from clean it for decades.  Stan claimed he was saving it for when his finally fell apart...  And suddenly, she wondered if that was somehow another lie.  Maybe she'd ask later, but for now, she had to tell Dipper what she'd done and maybe offer a comforting word or two after his nightmarish nod-off.  "It's okay, bro-bro," she offered, placing her hand on his shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze, "We still got two more months of summer."  
  
"Heh heh, yeah.  I knew that," he chuckled, wiping a bead of drool from his chin and letting his shoulders relax.  
  
As Stan flipped whatever the brown chunks in the skillet were, sending up a plume of steam, Mabel leaned over to Dipper and whispered in his ear, telling him how she'd found the truth teeth mentioned in his journal and that she'd snuck into Stan's room last night to put them in his mouth.  
  
"You what?" Dipper practically shouted, his limbs stiffening again.  Sure he wanted some answers just as much as Mabel did but he wasn't certain if he wanted ALL of the answers.  With that thought, he added, "That seems like a horrible idea!"  
  
"It's great!" Mabel cheered.  "Now he has to tell the truth.  Why don't you ask him about the midnight snacks or," her voice took a sly tone as she elbowed him and suggested, "Ask more about the scars and his tattoo.  Huh, huh?"    
  
Dipper hummed to himself, mulling over the idea, his hands tenting over the tabletop, "I am kind of worried about him after what he both did and didn't tell me..."  
  
The flip-flop of Stan's slippers drew their attention to him as he neared the table.  They looked up to find him hunched more than usual and his eyes half-lidded, underscored by dark circles that drooped below his glasses.  Stubble dotted his chin, furrier than they'd ever seen it before, and front of his white undershirt was stained in yellow splotches, as if the grease from the skillet had splatter painted it.  
  
"Scrambled meat, here it is," he said in a mostly flat, almost gloomy grumble and let the pan fall the two or so inches from his hand to the table top.  
  
With that, Dipper lost his nerve.  He glanced between Stan's drooping eyelids and the scratch and bite scars spotting his arms and he couldn't bring himself to force an answer out of him.  "Stan," he asked instead, "What do you do in secret everyday during your lunch break?"  
  
"Usually, I spend the hour aggressively scratching myself in places I shouldn't mention," he answered in a slightly monotone narrative.  Neither Dipper nor Mabel knew where he pulled a newspaper from but he flipped it open and added, "Now I'm going to avoid making eye contact by pretending to read this newspaper and going to the bathroom without washing my hands."  
  
Dipper and Mabel cringed with a simultaneous "Eww!" as Stan turned and left, his face still hidden behind the newspaper.  
  
"Well, that was disturbing," Dipper said, his appetite suddenly dwindling to nothing.  
   
"Dipper, What happened?"  Mabel questioned with a raised brow.  "Why didn't you ask him?"  
  
"I uh...  I had to test it!" He answered, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding as if this was all very scientific.  "So.  Yeah.  Those teeth definitely work.  Next time, then, heh heh.  Maybe I'll ask him after we make him wash his hands?"  
  
****  
  
That night, Stan laid still in his bed's familiar crater of broken springs, staring into the dark corner where a wood burning stove stood, cold for the summer.  He twitched at the click of his door unlatching and forced himself to focus on keeping his breaths even and rhythmic.  With his back to the door, he could only watch as a line of light was cast onto the wall, wavering over the curtains as they blew in the breeze from his open window.  Shadow fell across the bottom half and he could practically feel two sets of eyes staring at his covered back.  After a moment, the light reappeared only to narrow and disappear as his door clicked shut.  On the other side, he heard Dipper whisper, "Looks like he's asleep."  
  
"Are you sure?" Mabel asked, "Maybe we should wait a bit and see."  
  
"Do you really think he'll do anything weird while he can clearly tell that we're watching?"  
  
"Yeah.  You're right.  Let's go pretend to be asleep then," she suggested.  
  
"Or we could actually go to sleep and just try to ask some questions again tomorrow.  I mean, it's not like he can lie about it, right?"  
  
_Yes, please go to sleep_ , Stan thought to himself.  
  
"Or that," Mabel agreed with a yawn.  "I guess I am pretty tired.  Tired of hearing Grunkle Stan say gross things," she added with a giggle.  
  
With a stifled snicker Dipper whispered, "Right?  I hope he runs out of them tomorrow."  
  
_Not a chance, kid,_ Stan thought with a grin.  He listened closely, barely able to hear their socks against the floorboards.  He turned up the volume on his hearing aid and managed to make out an odd creak and crack fading into the distance as he assumed they were climbing the attic stairs.  
  
His momentary grin fell into a heavy frown at the idea of them monitoring his every move, being vigilant even in the darkest hours of the night, keeping an eye on things like the contents of the fridge and possibly, even his own office and bedroom.  "Shit," he hissed to himself, rolling over to find no visible line of light under his door.  They'd turned the hall light off, but had they really gone to sleep or was it a ploy to make him think they did?  "Why'd they have to go an' make things even more complicated..."  
  
For about an hour, he listened to the rustle of trees and the odd tweet of an insomniac bird outside his window but heard no sign of life beyond his door.  With each minute that passed he fretted over whether or not to risk visiting his brother.  He hated to admit it but, it wasn't just because the kids might catch him.  
  
It was a rare occasion when he dreaded a visit with his brother for any reason other than something Bill had done.  It wasn't so much because he'd have to apologize for missing out on another morning visit, something he already knew Ford would forgive him for, but because he had no idea how he would react to his predicament and he didn't have any patience left for lectures, worries, or big words.  It was bad enough that he was already angry at Mabel for getting him into this mess and, admittedly, a little hurt that she felt she had to go to such an extreme.  He didn't need his brother piling on or worse, feeling sorry for him.  But still, the need to check up on him eclipsed any and all other thoughts.  If Bill had hurt him and he was alone and suffering through the night, Stan couldn't forgive himself and he knew damn well that Ford still wouldn't use the panic button unless he thought he might not survive.  _I wish Bill hadn't used the phone we tried to install as a blunt object to give him two black eyes.  
  
_ With that thought, he shoved his sheets to the side and rolled out of bed.  He eased his door open, looking both ways down the dim hall.  With socks on his feet to dampen his steps, he climbed the stairs to the attic, skipping two at one point to avoid their squeaky protests.  He listened at the door to Dipper and Mabel's room, catching the sound of Dipper's whistled snore and Mabel's even breaths.  
  
"Please actually be asleep," he thought as he made his way back downstairs, tip toeing as much as his aching knees would allow.  He crept into the kitchen, hoping he could throw together something slightly closer to a meal than a granola bar for his brother.  In nothing more than the reddish light from a nightlight in the shape of a question mark and the golden glow from the truth teeth, he gathered supplies for a turkey sandwich.  
  
Struggling with the twist tie on the bread's bag, he grumbled to himself about "how could she do this to me?" and "here I thought we were starting to connect".  Frustrated, he tore the bag open sending slices flying, some landing on the counter, three landing on the floor, and two jammed between the counter's edge and his stomach as he jerked forward in a failed attempt to catch more.  He bit his lip over the ARGH! he wanted to yell and settled for crumpling the bag and ruined pieces of bread between his hands before tossing them at the trash can only to miss completely.  With a huff, picked them up, scrunched them in his fist again, and channeled all of his annoyance into dunking them in the can.  
  
_Great.  More things they're gonna notice.  Bread missing.  The bag in the trash...  Even if I put out the trash they'll wonder why and notice the missing bread.  
_  
Sighing, he hoped he could either get the kids to take those cursed teeth out of his mouth before they had a chance to ask too many questions or that he could get away with answering, "what, can't a guy get frustrated at the bread while he's trying to make a sandwich?"  Though, if they happened to awaken and find him missing again, he wasn't sure what he would say.  He'd just have to try to make this visit to the basement a quick one and hope for the best.  They had said they were tired, right?  
  
"Ugh.  Little twerps trying to trap me," he muttered, storing the remaining slices of bread in a plastic bag and dropping two into the toaster.  He pressed the lever down three times, biting back the curses he wanted to yell when it wouldn't stay.  He practically growled at himself when he noticed the toasters plug still laying on the counter.  Rolling his eyes, he plugged it in then rammed the lever down.  In the meantime, he sliced a tomato he deemed somewhat soggy but still good enough into uneven pieces, his knife tearing at it more than actually cutting it.  He thought better of trying to sharpen it while he sort of wanted to stab something a few times.  "Besides," he told himself, "Don't want to wake those little gremlins up."  
  
_Oh...  Son of a bitch, you're slipping up in your old age, Stan._  
  
Fumbling over himself, he reached for the toaster and pressed the cancel button, popping the almost-still-bread up from inside as he worried the smell might make its way to the attic and wake the kids.  If demons and other dimensions existed, maybe some greater power, or perhaps his own subconscious, was trying to tell something through forgetting to plug in the toaster earlier.  As his anxiety wound him tighter and tighter, the instincts he'd forged during his Colombian exploits and his years of running from Rico kicked in.  He listened for the creak of old boards or the sound of anyone's breath, searched for the smell of sweet fruit shampoo or the complete lack of a shower for days on end, and scanned the room, flinching at the shadow of rustling trees as it shifted over the table and floor, cast in moonlight through the window.  He even went so far as to peek out the door to assure no one was watching or listening.  
  
When it seemed all clear, he returned to the counter and what should have been a simple task.  Between trembling from both anger and nerves, he nearly tore through the almost-still-bread while trying to butter it.  At least the mustard seemed to cooperate after he'd shaken the daylights out of it.  As for the cheese, he had to consciously stop himself from tearing through its resealable package.  At least it wasn't moldy this time, though, he wanted to get his hands on whoever thought it was a good idea to package the slices without those little papers between them that make them easier to separate.  Lacking the patience to carefully peel the slices apart, he broke off a chunk that looked about the right serving size and tore it to bits between his fingers, sprinkling it over the turkey.

Once he decided he'd put together a semi-satisfactory sandwich, he turned to the sink, letting warm water run over his hands.  He tried to focus on it, to calm himself but found his anger spiking.  Yet another simple thing had put him on edge; he wasn't sure whether to wash the dishes in an attempt to cover his tracks or not.  "How can I let two kids get to me like this?" he fumed.  At that point, his decision was made.  A trail of obvious evidence pointing toward a midnight snack was probably his best bet.  He left the dishes in the sink, the crumbs on the counter, and the meat and cheese haphazardly draped over a container of left over rice in the fridge.  
  
Instead of the usual plate and tray, he opted for a sandwich bag and a tote to carry Ford's food.  From the cabinet under the counter, he pulled out a green canvas bag emblazoned with a white "Gravity Malls" logo and loaded it with the sandwich, a bag of scoop-shaped corn chips, one plastic container of mild salsa, and one container of spicy, because leave it to Ford to love spicy food despite his occasional stomach issues.  Though, luckily, the topic of spicy things reminded him to add two Pitt Colas and some paper cups.  "I really need to get a mini-fridge to put in the basement or something," he thought to himself.  He'd never needed anything like that before but if the kids' suspicion kept up, he'd have to make some changes.  If he'd had any idea things would end up like this, he wouldn't have agreed to let them stay for the summer.  If anything happened to them, if Bill got his hands on them, he'd never forgive himself and he knew Ford would never recover if Bill forced him to hurt them.  
  
Grumbling woes and regrets to himself, he checked the hall one more time, assuring no one was watching.  As he made the trek through the living room and toward the gift shop with the  green and white tote bag slung over his shoulder and socks brushing silently against the carpet, he paused in the blue glow of the aquarium.  Mabel's lobster seemed to be asleep, half hidden inside a hollowed out rock, but Xolotl drifted along near the glass as if watching Stan's every move with a smile.  As much he thought it should be creepy, it felt oddly comforting, like the little creature was reaching out to him, trying to cheer him up.  That was when the idea hit him.  Despite the risks his mind pointed out, practically screaming at him that he was only leaving more evidence for the kids to find, he couldn't help himself.  It wasn't quite like being controlled, he knew that feeling well from the teeth forcing him to spit out the truth.  It was more like a desire he couldn't deny, something he wanted to do so badly that no consequence seemed severe enough to stop him, like when he was five and couldn't pass up the chance to dump finger paint over their teacher's head after he heard her say to Ford that she wished he could be normal like the other children.  
  
Giving in, he bent down and let the bag slide off of his shoulder, the straps catching on his arm hair, nearly eliciting an audible "ah!" from him as they pulled a few out.  The bag settled onto the floor and he freed his hands from the straps, reaching to open the cabinet below the aquarium.  Between extra gravel, a package of filters, and a jar of food, Stan found the bowl he always used as a temporary home for Xolotl whenever he cleaned the aquarium.  Standing on his toes, he lowered it into the tank and the pink critter swam right up into it as if it was a game and he was excited to play along.  
  
With the bowl clutched in his arm and the bag slung over his shoulder again, Stan descended to the basement, stepping carefully down the cracking stairs to avoid sloshing any water out of the half-filled bowl.  When he knocked at Ford's door, he heard the epic soundtrack to Forward to the Past go silent at the command "TV off."   Ford followed up with a warning, "Careful when you open the door, Stanley.  Bill threw my glasses out of reach again and I can't tell where they landed."  
  
Stan obeyed, opening the door slowly as he heard something tap against it.  Looking down, he entered with caution, his socks against shuffling against the carpet to avoid stepping on Ford's glasses.  As the door closed behind him, he saw his glasses and eye patch had been pushed aside by it.  
  
"When did he do that?" Stan asked, careful not to tip the fishbowl as he bent to retrieve them.  
  
"Early this morning," Ford answered, one hand reaching out, swiping the air blindly until his fingers brushed against one of his cell's padded bars.  Using it as a guide, he lifted himself up, squinting at the blurred blob of his brother with his somewhat good eye.   
  
"Well shit," Stan huffed, placing the glasses and eye patch into his brother's open palm.  "Now I feel even worse about not being able to get down here this morning."  
  
"Eh, I was still able to listen to the television so it's alright," Ford assured him, turning the glasses until he found which way was up.  
  
"No, it actually isn't," Stan said, his shoulders drooping as he held the fish bowl between both hands in front of the waistband of his boxers.  He watched Ford as he adjusted his patch and glasses over his eyes, wondering with a wringing heart how many new wounds his turtleneck was hiding.  He couldn't see any blood stains so that had to be a good sign, right?  There were no new cuts or bruises on his face either but, there was no way of knowing what verbal abuse Bill had spewed at him unless Ford decided to talk about it.  Even then, he couldn't be sure if Ford was telling him everything.  
  
Regardless, he asked, "Are you hurt?" leaving it open to include any emotional damage.  
  
Ford sighed in relief at the return of at least some clarity to his vision and focused on his brother's shadowy figure, cast in amber light from behind.  "Just some bruises-" he began, interrupting himself with a gasp as he saw the fishbowl clutched between Stan's hands.  "Xolotl!" he blurted with a gap-toothed grin, stretching his arm out between the bars, his extended finger just out of reach of the glass bowl as Stan raised it and stepped a safe distance away.  
  
Feeling sort of awkward for dodging away, Stan risked undoing his backwards stride, hoping that Ford's new-found ability to warn him when Bill was taking over would hold out if it was needed.  
  
"Hey, I missed you, little guy," Ford spoke softly, not quite like one might speak to a baby or a dog but with a softer edge than his usual gravely gruffness.  As his finger brushed against the glass, the axolotl wiggled close like he was trying to nibble at it.  "Looks like your Uncle Stanley is taking good care of you."  
  
"Heh, hopefully I'm doin' okay with it," Stan said with a chuckle, his gaze wandering to Ford's extended arm, watching his sweater cuff shift enough to reveal the reddish edges of a deep bruise.  Despite it, his frown lifted to a smile as his attention shifted back to the pink creature in the bowl, wiggling like a puppy who'd been reunited with its human after years apart.  Stan didn't notice when his own grin became a toothy smile, but by the way Ford's finger drooped, he could tell his attention had been drawn away from the axolotl and up to the golden glow of his mouth.  He snapped it shut, chewing his bottom lip.  
  
"Stanley?" Ford questioned, looking a little ridiculous with one eye squinting and the other appearing constantly shocked thanks to the giant eye Stan had sewn on the cycloptopus eye patch.  In a suspicious drawl, as if he already both knew and dreaded the answer, he asked, "What happened to your teeth?"  
  
"Oh boy.  So much for a distraction," Stan grumbled.  He placed Xolotl's bowl on the storage trunk and set the tote bag on the floor with the thunk of two salsa containers hitting the carpet...  And possibly squishing Ford's sandwich.  
  
"Remember you told me about those truth-telling teeth you found and how you had that theory that only the person who put them in could take them back out again?" he asked, rotating his hand while he spoke as if it helped him to explain.  
  
Ford's hands wrapped around the padded bars of his cell, his eye widening with an anxious "Oh no."  
  
"Oh yes," he said, baring the glowing golden teeth and pointing to his mouth.  He tugged at the teeth for added effect, showing that he couldn't budge them.  
  
Ford bit his bottom lip, worry melting with a "Pfffft!" until a roar of laughter burst forth.  "Is that why you weren't here this morning?"  
  
"Yeah.  Again, sorry, 'bout that."  Stan's brows flattened as Ford continued to laugh.  "I don't know what's so funny, it's your ass on the line if these things make me say anything.  Okay maybe mine is too..  and maybe the kids..."  
  
"Sorry, sorry.  It's just.  Shit, Stan, I remember trying those things out and it was..." he tapped his chin until he came up with the words, "eye-opening."  
  
"Yeah, well..." Stan grumbled, his hands perched on his hips, "I hope you washed em' because this is bad enough without the thought of my brother's thirty year old spit being all over 'em."  
  
Ford's laughter sputtered, surging again before he sighed and assured him, "I did, I did.  Ha," he added, "I remember thinking 'what if we had these when we were kids and used them on mom?'"  
  
"I bet she'd find a way around it!" Stan said with a chuckle, cut short by the memory of some of her lies hitting a nerve.  Sure her ability to lie so flawlessly had served them well in the end and maybe she had given many of her customers the hope to keep moving forward through her false psychic readings but still, there were times when they had both seen her lies get out of hand.  Had he really been so bad that it made Mabel feel the same way?  
  
Ford's attempt at boosting his morale with, "And, I'm confident you will, too," only drove in the point.  
  
At a loss, struggling with anger he didn't know where to direct and the multiple replies it spawned, he opted to let out a half-joke rather than any of the enraged and jumbled thoughts, "...I don't know whether to be insulted or say thank you."  
  
"Both," Ford said, frankly, his hands draped over the bars as he explained, "Your ability to keep up a ruse has saved our lives more than once and continues to do so on a daily basis.  Though, there are times when a bit of honesty is appreciated...  And...  I'm sorry that you've had to lie to the kids so much because of me.  But, you're incredibly adept at finding loopholes and ways around the rules.  I can laugh about this because I know you're skilled enough to find a way."  
  
"I guess you got a point," he admitted, "There probably are things I could be more honest with the kids about."  He rubbed the back of his neck as he considered Dipper's spaghetti plate and how he'd lied to the police right in front of them.  "But," he said, realizing with something resembling pride that Ford was right about him finding a loophole, or at least trying to.  "I think I  _have_  found a way around saying too much.  For now.  I'm just picking all the disgusting parts of the truth and spouting them out loud.  Been doing it all day, trying to gross out the kids so they gotta take these things out of my mouth.  I kinda did accidentally insult a customer pretty bad, though.  Like, Mabel had to apologize for me and give him a refund, bad."  
  
"I think I made the mailman cry when I wore those teeth," Ford admitted.  
  
"Well," Stan said, his hands perched on his hips, "Frankly, I'm surprised you're not spouting off a million questions and trying to get me to admit to things and don't you dare say 'my name's not Frankly-'"  
  
"I'm going to stop you right there before you say something we'll both regret," Ford interrupted, holding his hands up, "Though, that last quip did sting a little.  Anyway, I'm not asking because I know what it's like to be in your position.  Those teeth have a tendency to let things slip out before you've had a chance to reason with yourself and come to a more thoughtful, conscious truth.  You end up saying things you don't actually mean because they're raw feelings that you haven't had a chance to process and filter through everything you've learned, as well as things you're trying to understand," he paused, his expression flattening.  
  
In a deadpan tone he warned, "And Bill's-" half way through the word "here," his eye glowed yellow and his lips stretched into the demon's far too familiar grin.  
  
Bill's laugh echoed unnaturally, nearly masking Stan's muttered mantra. "Don't punch him, that's still your brother's body.  Don't punch him-"  
  
"Ha!  Ford says he wouldn't mind if he wasn't so sure I'd enjoy it," Bill chortled, pointing at Stan's clenched fists, "Anyway, maybe Braniac doesn't want to ask anything but I got some questions!  Watching you squirm is going to be priceless!"  
  
"Here we go..." Stan rolled his eyes, leaning back against the door, his arms crossed over his chest.  
  
"I'll start off with the obvious.  You sure you don't wanna help rebuild that portal?" Bill asked, shrugging Ford's shoulders.  
  
"Never been more sure of anything in my life."  
  
"Really?" he crooned, reaching for Ford's pinkie, a finger he'd broken more than once.  
  
"Alright, I'm not playing this game," Stan barked, like a parent who'd had enough of their child's shenanigans.  He surged forward, reaching through the bars, his hands wrapping around Ford's wrists as Bill backed his body away.  
  
Ford's arms pulled taut as he tripped backwards over a bean bag but Stan kept his grip, pulling him back to his feet until his arms stretched through the bars, his chest pressed against them.  He snarled and gnashed Ford's teeth at Stan, his efforts causing not so much as a flinch in his exasperated expression.  "How can you even function when you know I could be down here doing all kinds of terrible things to your brother?"  Bill snarled, wriggling Ford's wrists against Stan's unrelenting grip.  
  
"I don't want to answer any of your questions," Stan proclaimed in a stern tone.  
  
"Aw come on," he whined with a pout, letting Ford's arms go limp.  "How about this one?  Do you really think Fordsy's not a pain in the ass?  Do you really enjoy spending your life-"  
  
"I said I'm not going to answer you!" Stan spat, stopping himself from giving Ford's arms an extra tug.  
  
"Ugh fine.  Yeesh.  I have better things to do anyway.  Catch you later!"    
  
Ford sagged forward against the bars, drawing his arms back into his cell as Stan released them.  He rubbed at his wrists prompting an apology from Stan and replied with, "It's far better than another broken finger.  Thanks."  
  
"I hate to say it but him leaving like that is starting to get me more and more paranoid," Stan admitted, bending over with a grunt to lift his usual floor pillow and fluff it.  
  
"Indeed."  
  
"Well, I guess his little visit proved something I was thinking about," Stan said with a sigh, letting the pillow fall to the floor and taking a seat on it with cracking knees, "It looks like these teeth let you say what you intend to do, even if you're not sure that someone will let you do it."    
  
"Interesting," Ford mused, lowering himself down to a cross-legged position on the padded floor.  "I take it you're planning on using that as part of your plan to convince the kids to take those things out of your mouth?"  
  
"Yeah.  Mabel, specifically," Stan said, lifting the green tote bag to unload it.  "She's the one who stuck these things in my mouth."  
  
"Oh huh.  I wonder how she even found them."  
  
"Dunno," Stan said with a shrug.  "I thought you said you buried them in the woods."  
  
"I did.  At least I think I did," Ford said, tapping his chin, "Unless Bill altered that memory."  
  
"Well, even if you did bury them, the kids are always out there looking for stuff," Stan said, his hand digging in the tote bag.  "With that pig of hers around, I wouldn't be surprised if he sniffed them out and dug them up.  I bet she tried them out and figured out what they do or something."  
  
"Interesting.  I would have thought it would be Dipper behind something like this."  
  
"You'd think, right?" he agreed, the bag of chips crinkling as he reached for Ford's slightly squished sandwich.  "He's just like you, always curious about everything and poking around for answers."  
  
"Now it's my turn to not know whether to be insulted or take that as a compliment."  
  
"Both," Stan quipped, handing Ford the sandwich.  "But I guess it's the same kind of thing as me lying.  You get yourselves into trouble sometimes but you also get answers no one else thought to look for."  
  
Ford fell silent, reaching for his sandwich on autopilot.   _I'm not sure that learning of the existence of other dimensions was worth this_ , he thought, taking his first bite as if to stifle his words.  An awkward silence passed between them as Ford quelled the questions he wasn't sure he wanted answers to, the same questions Bill had asked.  Even worse, he found himself thankful that he wasn't under the influence of compulsory truth-telling.  He didn't want to pile on to Stan's worries.  He'd tell him later about the visions (or, perhaps, hallucinations?) he'd experienced under Bill's possession earlier that day and just now.  Besides, for all he knew, it could have been a side effect of his new sleep medication.  Hallucinations were listed as a possibility on the bottle, after all.  Yes, he definitely needed to know more about them before bothering Stan with it.  
  
While Ford chewed silently, Stan considered something he'd blurted out to the kids earlier that night, something about wondering if this is all there is to life, biding our time and waiting for the sweet sweet release of death.  He'd looked down to find Mabel rocking back and fort to sooth herself and Dipper actually crying.  He didn't mean it.  Not really.  It was just one of those moments when his mind wandered into dark territory.  Usually, between his medications and the books he'd read over the years, he could interrupt those thoughts but at that time, they'd simply blurted out.  
  
_Truth really is complicated, isn't it?_  
  
Thanks to that thought, he found himself grateful for Ford's decision not to ask anything but, he could practically see the thoughts churning in his head.  Finally, Stan broke the silence in a jovial tone, "One.  You get one question and I'll answer it.  Anything else and I'm just gonna say 'nope don't want to answer' and that ain't a lie."  
  
Ford swallowed the last bite of his sandwich and breathed deeply, searching his mind for something to ask that wouldn't send them both into a downward spiral.   _Something fun.  Something amusing.  What about...  no.  That's ridiculous.  Oh I know._   "Who set off the fire alarm before every math quiz in third grade?"  
  
Stan made a sound like a game show buzzer.  "Try again.  Don't waste your question if you already know the answer," he chuckled, peeling the lids off of the salsa containers.  
  
"Ha ha, point taken.  Alright.  Hmm.  Okay, I have a better one," Ford said, watching Stan tear open the bag of scoop-shaped corn chips, almost laughing at the fact that they'd agreed never to eat the triangular ones again.  "How did you get Crampelter to stop putting oatmeal on our desk chairs every day in fourth grade?"  
  
"Alright, that's a good one," Stan said, pushing the spicy salsa closer to Ford's reach then cradling the mild one in his lap.  
  
"Well..." Ford urged, reaching for a chip and dunking it in his salsa.  
  
"Ma helped me with that one."  
  
"oh?"  
  
"Yeah.  She gave me a few of her Stupperware containers and told me to save whatever he put there every day until there was enough to fill his locker."  Stan stuffed another salsa loaded chip into his mouth, speaking through the partially chewed bite as if to illustrate his story's gross-out aesthetic, "Once all that moldy old oatmeal poured out all over him, he never did it again."  
  
"Ha!  Good one, Stanley," Ford said, scooping more salsa onto a chip despite the five alarm fire already blazing in his mouth.  
  
"I wish you could have seen his face!"  
  
"Me too!"  
  
The two continued laughing and reminiscing about their school days, crunching on chips and salsa and chugging their sodas for a few minutes before Stan realized he should probably get back upstairs.  "The kids are on to me," he explained, "and I can't afford them waking up and finding me out of bed again."  
  
"You're right," Ford said with a nod, watching Stan stand up with a groan, "You should go.  Don't worry if you can't make it down here as often.  There are still snacks in the bathroom."  
  
"Alright," Stan replied in a tone that was anything but alright.  Despite his distaste for the situation, he knew it was true that he might not be able to visit as often and it really was of some comfort to know his brother wouldn't starve if he couldn't make it down for a day.  But still...  There was the constant threat of Bill.  Besides that, Stan refused to stock more than a day's worth of Ford's medication in his bathroom after he'd admitted to lingering thoughts of suicidal ideation.  That was when it hit him like an electric shock.  The answers he'd refused to give Bill earlier might have implied something he never intended.  "Hey, Ford..." he said, gathering up the salsa containers, chip bag and empty soda cans.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
He loaded the tote bag and slung it over his shoulder.  With a sigh, he picked up the fish bowl, careful not to jostle Xolotl, and said, "I'm not lying when I say I'm glad you're here."  
  
Ford gave a small smile and packed more thoughts and emotions than he could manage to express into a single word, "Thanks."  
  
****  
  
That night, once Stan had found Dipper and Mabel still asleep after his visit with Ford, he crashed into a deep sleep until late in the morning.  The next day, he continued his barrage of unsavory truths, shouting out anything that sounded like too much information in all the worst ways.  At breakfast, he rambled on about the various sizes of the kidney stones he'd passed last fall.  The kids retreated upstairs with their cereal before he made it to the story of how he'd fallen asleep on the bathroom floor for a few nights.  While he was sure they were still trying to eat, he shouted far too many disgusting details about the flu he'd had that winter.  
  
Later that morning, somewhere around when he yelled out that he thought he might be getting a new growth on his back, rubbing things in by adding, "Just wanted to be honest with you guys," there was a knock at the back door.  
  
Stan's blood ran cold.  He stood on his toes, looking through the diamond shaped window to find Sheriff Blubs wiping sweat from his brow and Deputy Durland pursing his lips and staring inside at him.  
  
_Shit.  Just what I need right now._  
  
Two sets of footprints pelted against wooden planks, growing closer until they clomped down the stairs behind him, sounding almost... Panicked.  
  
_Wait...  Yeah.  Maybe this IS just what I need right now!_  
  
It was a risk, but if he'd be forced to admit to teaching a bear to drive then lying to the officers about it, he may as well go big and hope the kids would come through for him.  If not, all he could do was hope Soos would follow the emergency instructions he'd given him.  His own heartbeat thrummed in his ears as he opened the door, letting the officers inside.  Thankfully, the truth teeth didn't stop him from plastering on a fake smile and keeping his demeanor calm.  At every accusation, he admitted in a matter-of-fact tone to more crimes than they asked about, using his fingers to count them as he spouted out current and past crimes tacking on a "you're fat" to the end of his spiel for good measure.  
  
Dropping his cup of coffee in shock, Sheriff Blubs asked, "Is this true?!"  
  
_Ugh, that's gonna stain._  Stan thought but managed not to say as Dipper rushed down the last three stairs to his side and, to his defense.  
  
"No!  No, it's not true!" his voice squeaked with his outright lie.  A vocal nudge underscored his tone as he turned to his sister and said, "Right, Mabel?"  
  
Stan smiled internally as he could see her tug at her collar, sweating and mentally scrambling to come up with a lie of her own to get him out of trouble.  Any residual anger he had toward her melted into pride as she spun a lie about his promising career as a crime writer and calming Sheriff Blubs by asking if he'd lost weight.  Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland bought the whole thing, leaving satisfied with her answers and completely dropping the whole bear incident.  
  
_Heh, maybe Mabel really does take after me and ma,_ Stan thought.  
  
Yet...  The teeth were still stuck in his mouth.  _Alright, then...  This has to do it_ , he thought, shuffling into the living room and reaching for the phone.  Without even dialing, he picked it up and said, "Hello? Police station? I forgot to tell them about my tax fraud. No," he shouted for emphasis, "tax fraud."  
  
And that was when he hit the ground, splayed out on his back under Dipper and Mabel's weight, the table tipping over beside him and sending the phone and a bowl of peanuts crashing to the floor.  Mabel leaned forward, ready to pull the set of dastardly dentures from his mouth.  
  
At the last second, her hand recoiled. Her eyes narrowed and her knees dug into his chest as she blurted, "Wait!  Dipper!  This is your chance.  Ask him about his tattoo or something!"  
  
"I don't have a tattoo," Stan muttered before he could stop himself, squinting and shielding his eyes from the stained glass light hanging above.  
  
Dipper tapped his chin, humming.  "You know," he said, "That's alright.  Maybe I'm not okay with not knowing the whole truth but, I am okay with respecting your privacy about it, Grunkle Stan."  
  
"Heh, thanks kid."  
  
"Huh.  That's very mature of you, Dipper," Mabel's sugary sweet tone turned stern as she looked back down at Stan.  "Too bad I'm more worried about you than worried about being mature!  Grunkle Stan, What's going on around here?  I need to know.  Who was it that came here the other night and why were you actually dressed to see them?"  
  
"Huh?  That was Dr. Braum," he explained before he could stop himself, "I just didn't want to be in my underwear while she was here.  Sometimes I got a sense of what's proper, ya know.  And hey, you're lucky I wear the underwear while you're around.  When you kids ain't here-"  
  
"Whoa," Dipper said, lifting himself to his feet and holding his hands out, "alright, that's enough of that."  
  
"Dr.  Braum?"  Mabel stood, her voice tipping more toward a squeal with every word as she interrogated him, "She?  Wait!  Oh my gosh, Grunkle Stan!  Was that a Date and you didn't tell me?!  What about Lazy Susan?"  
  
"What?  Lazy Susan was a mistake.  And no.  That wasn't a date," he grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his head,  "I mean, sure, she and her assistant and that guy that was with them were all easy on the eyes but no.  I think they're all a bit too young for me."  
  
Mabel exchanged a worried glance with Dipper.  
  
"Grunkle Stan," Mabel fretted, any anger she had toward him withering into concern, "We're worried about you.  Sneaking out at night, not sleeping, eating a lot late at night...  I mean, we saw the mess in the kitchen.  Don't tell me you weren't up having another midnight snack last night."  
  
"Uh.  Ok.  I won't," Stan said with a shrug.  
  
"And now there was a doctor at the house?!" she continued, "In the middle of the night?  What's going on?"  
  
"Kids, I wish I could tell you.  I really do.  But I can't."  
  
"Why not?"  Dipper asked, adjusting his pine tree cap and sitting cross-legged in front of Stan.    
  
"Because I promised I wouldn't," he answered, scratching the back of his neck.  
  
"Promised who?" Mabel asked, flipping her hair over her shoulder and following Dipper's lead.  
  
"I can't tell you that either."  
  
Mabel paused for a moment.  Maybe Dipper was right.  She wasn't okay with not knowing, but a promise is a promise and, as much as it frustrated her, she could respect it.  Or at least try to.  "Well," she said, her brows furrowed in worry, "can you at least tell us this?  Are you alright?"  
  
"Look, Stan answered slowly, thinking things through before speaking, "I don't want you kids to worry but, not really, no.  I'm working on trying to be, though, okay?"  
  
Dipper and Mabel exchanged glances again.  
  
As if speaking for them both, Dipper asked, "Is there anything we can do to help?"  
  
"Yeah, there actually is," Stan replied with a smile, his gravely voice gentle, "Can you let me do whatever I need to without all these questions and just trust me?  I want you kids to have a decent summer and I was just hoping to spend a bit of time with you, is all.  And, Dipper, I swear I wasn't lying when I said I'd tell you everything as soon as I can.  Believe me, I want it to be sooner rather than later."  
  
"I guess I'm alright with that," Dipper said with a shrug.  
  
"Yeah, I guess I am, too," Mabel added, standing and reaching for Stan's mouth.  "Let's get rid of these things once and for all, then," she said, tugging the teeth out with a slurp.  
  
"Huh, what?  What happened," Stan said with the slur of missing teeth.  "Why am I sitting on the floor.  And where are my dentures.  Why did I have a dream that I confessed a bunch of stuff to the cops?  Dipper, Mabel?  What's going on?" he questioned, hoping his amnesiac act was convincing enough.  
  
"Oh, well um, you-" Dipper stuttered, bracing his hands against the floor to hoist himself to his feet.  
  
"You were sleep walking!" Mabel interrupted, hiding the teeth behind her back. "Let's get you upstairs and dressed.  I have something I need to never see again for the rest of my life and I need some help finding a place to lose it forever," she said, offering him a hand to help him up.  Dipper followed her example, holding out his hand as well.  
  
Stan accepted their help, groaning as he stood.  With a laugh he patted Mabel on the back and said, "I know just the place."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khb, L wkrxjkw L hudvhg wkh phprub ri zkdw brx vdz, LT...
> 
>  
> 
> [ End notes for past chapters decoded here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
>  
> 
> Updates might still be every other week for a while because I've run into a few more health issues that are causing more brain foggy days than not. Besides that, I'm still working on the garden stuff but getting there slowly. They needed a lot more work than I originally thought. I didn't expect to re-dig the drainage ditch in the backyard and refurbish the three small gardens at the side of the house.


	23. Vivid Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does Ford do when Stan isn't around? Catch a glimpse of life in the basement in this week's installment of The Man Downstairs.
> 
> Also, Stan makes some calls, Mabel overhears things, and Bill visits Gideon's dreams again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mention of a gruesome hallucination involving the genocide of an interdimensional world. As usual, nothing too detailed.
> 
>  ~~The ending poll is still open for anyone who'd like to vote! Also, I'm sorry the written answer portion was set as required for the first night. I thought I'd changed it to optional but apparently not -__-. Anyway, it's set as optional now so if you weren't sure about voting before because of having to add something there, it's fixed so you don't have to :D.~~ Edit - Poll closed. Thanks to everyone who voted!
> 
> Next update will have a new poll with the options narrowed down a bit more, sort of like a finalists round ;). Thanks so much for all of your input!
> 
>  
> 
> [ Oh ha, there's art here for the last chapter. ](https://shattereddreams-gravityfallsfics.tumblr.com/post/174911624481/rum-and-shattered-dreams-a-few-illustrations)

Surrounded by pillows, Ford sat cross-legged behind the padded bars of his basement cell.  He stifled a yawn as he watched Stan gather empty soda cans and what remained of the chips and salsa they'd shared into a Gravity Malls tote bag.  
  
"Hey Ford," Stan said, his voice wavering as he seemed to speak more to the bag and its increasing contents than to his twin.  
  
"Yes?" he answered, sleepiness tugging at his limbs as if luring him down onto the plush padding below.  It wouldn't matter if he fell asleep in his clothes, right?  His weathered red sweater was rather like a blanket, he thought, or at least it was soft and warm enough to lull him closer to slumber.  Or maybe that was just his medication kicking in.  He had taken it before Stan knocked at his door, thinking he might not have been able to visit that night.  
  
Stan remained silent, taking a moment to sling the tote bag over his shoulder then turning his attention to the axolotl's bowl, still sitting atop the storage trunk.  Xolotl had seemed content to observe the brothers, as if they were part of a terrarium he was studying from inside his bowl as they'd discussed Stan's truth-telling predicament and shared a meal.  But, as if he knew it was time to say good night, he swam around in a circle and stopped to face them.  Stan's hands cupped around the bowl but he peeked between his fingers, looking right at Ford.  He waved goodbye to the axolotl, who seemed to smile back at him with a nod, like it was his way of returning the sentiment.  
  
Ford's light smile faded as his gaze shifted back to Stan.  His mouth moved to ask "What were you going to say, Stanley?", but snapped shut again as he watched his brother release a slow breath and lift his head.  
  
Stan looked him straight in the eye, his expression somber as he said, "I'm not lying when I say I'm glad you're here."  
  
A stampede of emotions nearly trampled him, threatening to release a menagerie of sentiments if he wasn't swift to close the gates.  From the captive chaos, he managed to liberate a small smile and a single word, "thanks."  
  
Stan smiled back and added, "hope you get some sleep."  
  
"You too, Stanley.  Take care."  
  
The door clicked shut leaving Ford alone, cast in stripes of shadow and amber light.  Yet, he didn't have so much as a moment to calm his uproar of emotions before Bill's sickeningly familiar presence invaded his mind.  His gentle smile drooped into a deep frown as he greeted the demon with a sarcastic, "I thought you said you have better things to-"  
  
Ford's words melded with Bill's laugh as the demon shattered his resistance.  
  
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha, Like I need to explain myself to you.  Nice of your brother to try answering my questions though.  He's got a real way of threading words through loopholes, doesn't he?"  
  
"Shut up, Bill!" Ford shouted in his own mind, half wanting to block out the demon's belligerent badgering and half hating himself for wondering what his point was, wanting to hear it like one wants to pick at a zit.  
  
"No.  NO!  I won't let you take this away from me, Bill!"  
  
"Taking away?  Pfft.  I prefer to think of it more like giving you more to think about.  And it looks like you've already accepted my gift.  I mean, ha," Bill chortled, "'I'm glad you're here.'  That's what he said, isn't it?  Aww.  How sweet.  Am I right?" he asked, shrugging Ford's shoulders.  When no response came, no gruff grousing from somewhere inside the man's mindscape, he rambled on, "Sounds like he's glad you're literally here...  get it?  That you're in this cell and not wandering around upstairs where I can use you to make things more fun!  Right?" he prodded for a response and when none came again, he shifted Ford's body from side to side, cracking his shoulders as he repeated," Right?  Hey, brainiac are you even listening to me?  Hellooo," he drawled, tapping Ford's knuckles against the side of his head as if he was trying to jar a broken television into functioning again.  "Anyone in here?  Yo, Fordsy!"  
  
****  
  
Smog hung in the air, masking the sun's light behind putrid shades of green and yellow.  Ford wanted to cough, to hack up the stench of smoke and ash and the acidic miasma that burned its way to his taste buds, but he lacked the control, almost like when Bill possessed him but somehow...  Different, though, he couldn't put his finger on exactly how.  All he could do was gaze across an expanse of oily water standing far too still as it stretched and faded into the horizon.  From its surface, burnt and broken wooden beams jutted out like arrows in a corpse, some still smoldering, others black against the dimming sky.  His gaze shifted down to the water's surface, to the orange foam dissipating in fizz of tiny pops below.  Through the murky green he could see debris; wood planks, metal panels, and...  _No... NO!  
_  
His vision blurred and Bill's familiar whine grated through his consciousness like a serrated knife, "Hellooo.  Anyone in here?  Yo, Fordsy!"  
  
Even in his own mind, he could only moan in response, gagging as the horrors he'd seen stirred in his stomach.  
  
"What the heck, did you seriously fall asleep on me?" Bill snorted.  
  
Ford wasn't sure he could answer.  Had he fallen asleep?  Was that horrific vision a dream?  Or a hallucination?  He'd taken his sleep medication nearly an hour ago so it wasn't out of the question to think it had plenty of time to take effect.  Besides that, fending off Bill for even a moment tended to mentally drain him and he'd already done it twice that night.  That had to be it.  When Bill gained control, he'd fallen asleep, or at least, into the foggy state between wakefulness and sleep, and the side effects of his medication had possibly kicked in.  Funny, he thought, that a medication meant to reduce nightmares seemed to be replacing them with disturbing hallucinations.  He supposed he really should mention them to Stan next time he visited.  Maybe Dr. Braum would have some advice or an alternative prescription.  But for now, he'd settle for answering Bill with every ounce of animosity he could muster.  "Humph," he huffed, "Can I help it if your incessant whining bores me to sleep."  
  
"Ugh.  Why does it feel like your body wants you to throw up?" Bill asked, covering Ford's mouth as he gagged.  The burn of spicy salsa pricked at the back of his throat and Bill snickered, "Hoo boy!  You're about to have a real interesting night, aren't you?  Serves you right for chowing down on the spicy stuff so late.  Welp, I'll leave you to it, then.  For once you were right.  I DO have better things to do than hunch over a toilet."  
  
With that, Bill's presence vanished.  Ford cupped his hand over his mouth, the words, "Not going to vomit, not going to vomit, not going to, please no, it was just a hallucination.  It wasn't real." looping in his head.  Even so, the putrid stench lingered in his memory, so potent, it was as if it overtook the scent of mint and rosemary mingling with his own didn't-bother-to-shower-for-a-few-days musk.  He staggered to his feet, reaching for the padded wall separating the bathroom from the rest of his cell.  Bracing himself against it, he swallowed over and over, desperate to calm the twisting in his throat and wishing he could delete that vision from his memory, or at least hide it the way Bill could hide memories he actually wanted to remember.  
  
He didn't understand how, with nothing more than that vision, he knew that the countless charred and broken bodies he'd seen below the water's surface weren't human.  Even so, there were entire families, grandparents, children, and even their pets, crops, and livestock submerged beneath rubble and floating among flares of green and orange, the equivalent to an ocean dyed red with the blood of innocents on Earth.  
  
Clutching his hands together over his chest, he slid to the ground, counting his breaths until his nausea ebbed.  He focused on anything else he could think of, smiling at the funny faces Dipper and Mabel made in one of the photos on the wall, feeling every ridge of yarn as the hem of his sweater threaded through his fingers, and dreaming of a day when he might finally wear the fishing hat Stan had made for him.  Finally, his thoughts settled back on what Stan had said before leaving and what Bill seemed to be getting at before the hellish hallucination interfered.  
  
"You're not going to get to me this time, Bill." Ford whispered to himself, almost growling as if he could lash out at the demon, even if Bill couldn't hear a word he said.  "I know what Stan meant."  
  
He hated that his own mind asked, "Do you really, though?"  
  
"Yes, I do," he whispered aloud.  He always knew he wanted to think positively about things like this but he couldn't count how many times his own mind got in his way, how many times his own inner voice could abuse him as brutally as Bill, or potentially worse, simply because it  _was_  his own voice.  Though, he couldn't tell anymore how much of that voice was his own doing and how much Bill provoked, nor could he tell how much of the strength to fight back came from his own willpower or his depression medication acting as reinforcement.  Either way, he managed to fish one logical thought from the flood in his mind, "He said he's glad I'm here.  Even if that means specifically in this cell so I can't hurt anyone, it also means specifically in this cell instead of in a coffin in the ground."  
  
With a snort, he picked himself up again and stepped into the bathroom, thankful it was to brush what remained of his teeth rather than to give up his dinner to the toilet before he'd had a chance to digest it.  Though he tried to focus on the minty flavor of toothpaste, his mind wandered back to his vision.  As gruesome as it was, he thought, it might make a powerful addition to the novel he'd been working on, though, something about that idea didn't sit right with him.  "Oh well," he thought.  "I've got all day tomorrow to consider it."  
  
"Maybe a bit of sleep will clear things up, too" he added.  "At least, it probably couldn't hurt."  With that in mind, he dragged himself out of the bathroom and reached through the padded bars to hit the light switch.  Once he'd settled in among a pile of pillows, his mind wandered back to the hallucination he'd had earlier that morning, just as Bill had thrown his glasses out of reach.  
  
It hadn't been anything like this last one, possibly the opposite, he thought.  Shrouded in pastels and the scent of fresh rain, he'd seen what looked like Xolotl swimming through the mist.  Part of him wondered if it was some premonition that Stan would bring Xolotl down for a visit but part of him knew he'd been thinking about the little critter a lot lately.  Stan must have known it too.  Surely it was just a coincidence-  
  
"Wait..." he spoke aloud, his eye opening wide to stare at the space between the bars and the wooden wall of his room, barely lit by the glow of the tiny blue light on the television.  "Stan said Mabel was keeping a lobster in the aquarium with Xolotl...  There's no way it should still be alive!  But," he reasoned with himself, drifting back into sleepiness, "I suppose if Xolotl is still alive after all these years, it's not that far of a stretch to believe a lobster from a seafood restaurant could survive in a freshwater aquarium in this town..."  
  
  
****  
  
  
Ford wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep nor how long he'd stayed that way.  All he knew was that he awoke to find the grow light over his photosynthetic friends already on, the fountain trickling water over it's faux rock formations, and his glasses still on his face.  
  
"Ugh...  they're so blurry I may as well not even have them on," he grumbled to himself as he squinted to look at the clock.  
  
"It's already after three?  Sheesh.  I wonder if Stan tried to visit and I missed him," he thought before gathering enough clarity enough to remember that, "Oh right.  He might not be able to visit much for a while.  I hope he's worked things out.  Maybe he's having a nice day with...  With the kids."  
  
_Stop it, don't feel sorry for yourself._   He scolded himself, absently chewing his bottom lip.   _The whole reason you told him he should let the kids stay the summer is so he could spend some time with them.  Stop being....  Stop being jealous, damn it!_  
  
He rolled onto his back, staring up at various shades of blue fabric draped along the ceiling, the lighter ones dyed to look like the daytime sky with puffs and swirls of clouds, the darker shades spotted with white dots like the nighttime stars.  With a sigh, he allowed himself to admit, _it's not as easy as telling myself not to feel something.  
_  
At least he could try to interrupt himself, even if the shift to anxiety wasn't much better.  "I really do hope he's gotten things worked out with the kids and Mabel took those teeth out of his mouth."  He couldn't help being a little nervous, wondering if they might all show up at his door at some point that day.  The envious part of him almost wished they would despite every ounce of fear and anxiety inside him telling him that it would be a disaster, that it would be like what happened with mom all over again, but the reasonable part, or at least he thought that's what it was, hoped, had to hold on to the belief that Stan was skilled enough to keep their secret.  
  
With a sigh, he sat up, fully intending on going to the bathroom to wash up and properly clean his glasses but a faint rumble from above halted him.  He listened closely to a whir he usually only heard during the worst snow storms in the winter and another muffled rumble.  
  
"TV on," he commanded, followed by a series of "channel up, up, up," until he found the weather radar on the local news station.  
  
"Wow.  That wasn't in the forecast," he commented as he watched a blotch of pure red storminess bloom right over Gravity Falls.  It wasn't the first time a storm popped up out of nowhere over their town, though, and he suspected it wouldn't be the last.  He'd been caught in such storms more than once while hiking or searching for anomalies in his youth.  Once, he'd been blown off of his feet and right into an antelabbit's den (not to be confused with their estranged cousins, the jackalopes.) and not in the way where he'd landed upon it or broken it, but, rather, blew straight through its mouth and into what must have been, judging by the sofa-shaped furballs, their living room.  Luckily, they'd let him stay for a cup of tea until the storm passed.  
  
"I hope everyone's safe inside," he whispered, watching Shandra's coverage of whipping winds in the downtown area.  He watched the coverage for a good fifteen minutes until the storm wound down and the sun shone through again.  Just as the forecast's voice over warned for higher than average temperatures tomorrow, he commanded, "TV off."  
  
"Hmm.  The antelabbit is an entertaining enough exhibit for the shack," Ford thought, lying back in his beanbag and tossing a pillow into the air, trying to catch it by its corner in one hand.  He could remember a time when it would smack him in the face more times than not but he'd practiced for so many hours that he could spin it high in the air, coming within an inch of smacking into the tent-like ceiling, and catch it again on that same corner, stained by three drops of blood from...  He wasn't sure exactly what anymore.  "ANYWAY," he interrupted his thoughts, setting them back on track again, "What if Stan gave it wings?  What would we call something like that? a feathantelabbit?  A Pegantelabbit?"  
  
He threw the pillow again and caught it, holding it still this time as a swift patter caught his attention, growing louder as it neared his door.  "Oh no!  The kids made Stan tell them!" he thought, bolting upright, his head whipping back and forth as he tried to decide whether or not hiding under a pile of pillows would help.  "Or maybe they found out?  Does that sound like more than one set of feet?"  
  
He could have sworn his heart stopped as his door shook under rapid-fire knocks.  
  
"Y-yes, what's wrong?!" he answered, clutching the poor pillow so tight it nearly popped a seam.  
  
The door swung open, slamming against the wall so hard it shook three photos worth of push pins out of the wall and Ford's fishing hat right off of its hook.  Instinctively, Ford held the pillow up over his face like a shield, barely peeking over the top to find Stan rushing in alone.  
  
"Shit, Ford!  Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!" he rambled.  His fez sat crooked over a tousled mess of hair and wrinkles appeared deeper against his the paleness of his face.  Ford imagined he must not look much better between his untamed bedhead, stubbly chin, and the mask of worry drawn over his face.  
  
"Stanley?" he asked lowering the pillow, limbs too stiff to try to stand, "Stanley, what happened?!"  
  
Before Ford could ask, "the kids know, don't they?!" Stan spat out, "That damn bottomless pit, that's what!"  
  
"The bottomless pit?" he repeated, confusion contorting his face until it settled into the stern seriousness of a  worried parent, "Oh, Stanley, don't tell me you-"  
  
"Can it.  I don't need the I told you so's about staying away from it," Stan huffed, slamming the door shut and knocking two more push pins to the floor.  
  
"I wasn't going to-"  
  
"Yeah you were," he said, audibly struggling to calm his voice as he bent to pick up Ford's hat and the three photos.  "You had that look on your face."  
  
"Alright maybe I was going to a little," he admitted, his knuckles and fingers probably feeling as relieved as the pillow when his grip on it eased up.  "But seriously, are you alright?"  
  
"I will be once my heart stops pounding like it's trying to perform its own bongo solo," Stan said, hanging Ford's hat back on its hook.  
  
"What about the kids?  Stanley...?" Ford's heart picked up tempo again as he asked, "Where are the kids?!"  
  
"They're alright.  I sent them into town with Soos to get us some tacos for dinner.  You still like supreme, right?"  
  
"Yes, thank you," he answered, sighing in relief and practically prying his fingers from around the mangled pillow.  
  
"Good.  One we actually agree on.  Less questions from the kids that way," he muttered, picking up pushpins and dropping them into his open palm with tiny pings.  He replaced the photos on the wall, the pins fitting neatly into a few already punched holes.  "Shit, he breathed, gazing at a photos of himself and Ford from the nineties.  With a sharp turn back to his brother he turned up both his volume and urgency with a fresh wave of worry, "SHIT, Ford!"  We all fell in that pit today.  Not just me.  The kids and Soos too.  Soos is our backup plan if something happens to me!  If what you said about that pit is true, we could have ended up in another dimension!  What would have happened to you?  We need another plan.  A backup backup plan."  
  
"Whoa, slow down.  Why don't you sit down for a minute and tell me what happened?" Ford offered, motioning to Stan's usual floor pillow.  
  
Stan shook his head and explained, "No time.  They'll be back any minute."  Instead, he draped his hands over the padded horizontal bar , resting his forehead between two of the vertical ones.  After a few breaths he opted for a brief telling of the story rather than his usual showmanship style, simply saying that, "I finally got Mabel to take those truth teeth out of my mouth and wanted to get rid of 'em.  Maybe I grossed her out too much, I dunno.  Anyway, I figured, hey, why not toss them in the pit and let them be some other dimension's problem, right?  So, I took Soos and the kids out there to get rid of various things we didn't want anymore and a freak windstorm blew through.  I tried to grab the kids and get out of there but it blew us all right in.  Almost like something out there had something against us!  Shit.  Shit!  I almost couldn't hold it together in front of the kids."  
  
"But you made it out safe," Ford prompted, looking up to him but refusing to move any closer and actually fighting the urge to scoot further away.  The last thing he needed was Bill making Stan's day even worse.  
  
"Yeah, but if something like that ever happens again, I gotta come up with another plan," he said, brows furrowed with worry.  "I can't let you just rot down here if something happens to me and Soos."  He paused, breathing deeply before offering an idea, "I was kinda thinkin'  What about Dr. Braum?  I wonder if she'd agree to sort of, keep an eye on the place here."  
  
"Maybe..." Ford replied, rubbing his chin.  While he didn't exactly love the idea of involving someone else in their mess, at least Dr. Braum seemed to have a good understanding of it.  Though the thought of something happening to Stan while he was still stuck in the basement strangled his heart much like he'd done to the pillow still resting in his lap.  Swallowing hard, as if it would help quell the uprising of emotions, he asked, "Isn't that a lot to ask of someone we barely know?"  
  
"Not for the right price.  I still got some of that prize money."  
  
"Well, if you really think-"  
  
Before Ford could finish, Stan declared his decision, "I do.  I'm gonna get back upstairs and call her right now.  Maybe I'll get a call in to that therapist she recommended while the kids are out, too."  
  
"A-alright," Ford stammered.  "Hey!" he shouted after Stan as he opened the door, one foot already outside, "You're going to tell me all about how you rid yourself of those teeth later, right?"  
  
"Yeah.  Sure will.  Later!" he said, letting the door click closed.  
  
"And...  And I'll tell him about the hallucinations too," Ford promised himself, simultaneously cursing himself for failing to bring it up before Stan was going to call Dr. Braum anyway.  "Dr. Braum," he repeated to himself.  "Maybe she'll be alright with finding a place to keep me so I can't hurt anyone but...  Will she be alright with finding a safe place to keep the leftover portal parts..."  
  
  
****  
  
Stan rushed back upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.  The moment he stepped out from behind the vending machine, his leg collided with the side of a pig and he tumbled forward, losing his fez.  Waddles let out a squeal of surprise, his hooves tapping against the wood as he sped off to cower behind the checkout counter.  Stan's knees hit the floor, his hands splayed to at least partially stop his fall.  
  
"Ugh!  Stupid pig!  Maybe Ford had a point with that no pigs in the house thing," he groused, picking himself up with cracking joints.  At least his suit pants prevented the kinds of scrapes he'd had as a kid.  Sometimes he wondered how he and Ford had any skin at all left on their kneecaps.  He dusted off his suit and bent over with an "ugh" to lift up his Fez and set it on the counter, offering a snippy, "Sorry, pig," to Waddles before rushing off through the living room and into his office.  
  
He tugged at one of the tails of the red bow tied around his neck, loosening it until it hung completely untied.  With sweat dripping from his forehead and soaking his shirt, he couldn't shed his coat and undo his top two buttons fast enough.  He fanned his shirt's fabric against his chest and reached for the window, hoping that opening it would let some sort of air circulation into the room.  Even a warm breeze would be better than the musty heat building between stacks of paper and towering file cabinets.  But, it seemed as though that wind storm had taken any trace of a breeze with it and had left them with nothing but the blazing afternoon sun.  Though the trees certainly tried to help, their spotty shade didn't seem to do much, or perhaps, Stan thought, he had simply overheated himself by running around like he was still in his twenties.  
  
Still panting from his sprint, he picked up the phone and dialed Dr. Braum's number.  As the automated menu answered, his hearing aid squealed and he tipped the handset back and forth finding no position seemed to ease the feedback.  With a huff, he pulled it out and pressed the phone to his ear, plugging the other to hear what he could.  After transferring from the receptionist to a medical assistant, he finally got a hold of Lottie only to find he'd have to call Dr. Braum's mobile number later that night.  
  
While Lottie assured him she'd give Dr. Braum the message so she could anticipate his call, he searched his desk drawer for the therapist's business card they'd given him the other night.  After the formalities of a polite goodbye, he didn't even put down the handset, simply tapped the hook switch to hang up and dialed in the therapist's number.  As he listened to the rings, he couldn't help nagging himself again about looking into getting one of those computer phones like the kids had.  
  
"Dr. Ida's office, how may I help you," a smooth voice interrupted the third ring, barely audible until Stan pressed the handset to his ear again, plugging the other.  
  
As he answered, shouting a little in the absence of his own better hearing, he completely missed the sound of Soos's truck rumbling into the parking lot and backing up right into a "no refunds" sign.    
   
  
****  
  
  
"Oh man, that's the third time this month I ran into that sign," Soos fretted, shifting back into drive to pull up a bit then shifting to park and turning off the ignition.  
  
"I'll help you with it," Dipper offered, climbing out of the front seat to survey the damage.  "Mabel, can you take the food in for us and we'll be there in a minute?"  
  
"I'm on it, bro-bro!" Mabel said, grabbing two paper bags emblazoned with the McTaco Hut motto, "I'm wantin' the good stuff" and sliding down from the back seat.  
  
While Soos and Dipper examined the fallen sign, Mabel trotted up to the steps to the back porch and placed the bags on the weathered sofa for a moment to dig out her key.  As she rummaged through a pocket she'd sewn behind the applique of a wolf howling at the moon on her sweater, she heard the patter of hooves scramble toward the door.  
  
"Waddles!  I'm home!" she sang as she pulled out the key, "Hold on, just let me... there!"  She opened the door and held out her arms, expecting Waddles to jump into them.  
  
Instead, he ran past her, speeding off around the side of the shack to hide in the shadows between the shell of an old washing machine and a cluster of pine trees.  
  
"Waddles?  Waddles, what's wrong?" She shouted, running after her pig.  "Waddles.  Come on out, it's alright," she begged, standing on an old tire to peek over the washing machine.  She could have sworn the pig shook his head "no" before wiggling deeper under the trees.  
  
"Ugh, fine.  Then I'm coming to get you," she said, finding her footing in the moss growing out of the machine's tub and climbing on top of it.  
  
Just as she reached down to shoo Waddles out, she heard Stan practically yelling on the other side of an open window above her head, "Yeah, hi, uh my name is Stan Pines.  Dr. Braum referred me to your office."  
  
"Dr. Braum..." Mabel repeated, shushing herself to a whisper as she mused, "That woman who was here the other night?"  She leaned closer to the office window, wishing she could hear the other end of that conversation.  
  
"Oh she did?" Stan asked, "Wow, she's really on top of things, isn't she?"  
  
"That's probably a good thing," Mabel thought.  
  
"Yeah, uh, discretion is one way of putting it," Stan quipped.  
  
"Discretion...  What?" Mabel muttered, leaning in closer and stifling a "Whaaa!" as she slipped off of the washer and into a pile of pine needles beside Waddles.  "Why's he being so secrety about whatever this is?" she asked Waddles as she picked pine needles out of her hair.  
  
"Yeah, I know.  I know it's gonna cost me," Stan grumbled, "But I can't keep avoiding this.  I mean, reading books only gets you so far, ya' know.  I think an actual therapist would help."  
  
"A therapist?!" She slapped her hands over what was almost a squeal.  "Eeee!" she whispered instead, "He really is trying to get better about something, isn't he?  What do you think it is, Waddles?"  
  
"Yeah, that would be great," Stan said, sounding a little less...  She couldn't be sure what the edge to his shouting was when the conversation began.  Worried?  Bothered?  Either way, he seemed to be calming down.  "For now, yeah," he added, "It'll probably change in the fall, though."  
  
"What will change in the fall?"  
  
"Oh, she's out for the week?" Stan griped, "Yeah, that's fine.  I can wait.  What's that?  A phone number?  Oh right.  It's 323-283-8650.  Alright, thanks."  
  
As Stan's conversation wound down, Mabel reached behind Waddles, pushing him out from behind the washing machine and using it as a crutch to drag herself out.  She could almost picture Stan leaning over his desk massaging his eyes so his glasses tipped up to his forehaed as she heard his gruff sigh and a grumble of "Great.  The waiting game."  Sighing herself, she tip-toed back to the porch to find Gompers gnawing on the rolled top of one of the spicy scented McTaco Hut bags.  
  
"Gompers, no!  That's our dinner!" She said, dashing up the stairs to snatch the bags from him.  "Phew, he didn't get to the inside."  Wiping sweat away from her eyes, she looked down to Waddles who climbed the stairs with some trepidation.  As she called to him, "Come on, it's alright, Waddles.  Whatever scared you so much isn't going to hurt you.  I won't let it," he picked up his pace to a light trot   
  
She patted him on the head and stared out toward the spotting of sun and shade cast across Soos's truck.  Near its back, Dipper wiped his brow and held up the "No refunds" sign, clearly duct taped back together, while Soos's mallet hammered it back into the ground.    
  
"What do you think, Waddles?  Should we tell Dipper what we heard?" She asked, clutching the bags to her chest gently, avoiding crushing their dinner.  
  
She answered herself in her imagined version of Waddles' voice, "I don't know, Mabel, you promised Stan you'd help by staying out of things."  
  
"Yeah, I kind of did.  But what if he's embarrassed of getting therapy or something?  He needs to know he doesn't have to be.  He needs to know Dipper and I are here for him."  
  
"I don't know, Mabel.  You don't even know what's actually going on.  You could make whatever it is worse if you say anything."  
  
"You're right, Waddles.  I think, for now, we'll let this be our little secret.  But we'd better still keep an eye on Grunkle Stan to make sure he's okay, right?"  
  
"That's a great idea.  All of your ideas are great, oink oink."  
  
"Ha ha, thanks, Waddles."  With that, she trotted inside with her pig at her side, slammed the door, and yelled, "Grunkle Stan!  Food's here!"  
  
  
****  
  
  
Gideon's lips stretched into a wide smile, his arms perched on his hips as he looked out over Gravity Falls from inside a towering robot built in his likeness.  Though he could not see her face, he knew Mabel sat at his side, looking down as the town's people gathered around the robot's massive metal feet.  
  
Shouts of, "Gideon's the best!" and "What can we do for you?!" echoed through the valley, mingling with laughter and shouts of joy from the rides in his newly built Gideonland.  Even better were the piles of cash flowing in from ticket sales and from his unrivaled Tent of Telepathy.  
  
He blinked and he was on the ground, looking out at the cheering crowd.  "Thank you, thank you!  My my, you're all so sweet," he praised his people.  "That'll be all for today," he said, taking a bow and sauntering over a path of glimmering stones cut into a lush lawn.  He looked up to where the Mystery Shack once was to find a gleaming white castle with blue detailing on its turrets in its place.  One more step and he found himself drifting down, as if he'd stumbled into a patch of quick sand.  
  
He struggled against the pull, twisting and turning until he wasn't sure if the world actually went dark or if he simply refused to open his eyes.  When he finally did, he found himself staring up at a familiar sight, an inverted triangle with a rainbow ring of light swirling at its center.  He felt something he could only describe as pure power surging through him, like he had the ability to conquer the world.  
  
All too soon it faded and he found himself in a vast room with dirt walls supported by wooden beams.  Stacked against the far wall were parts and pieces he could tell came from the machine he'd just seen.  They were like nothing he'd ever encountered in his waking life, almost as if they'd been created by something unearthly.  Beside them stood a figure with a familiar face.  As he stepped through the dim dankness to get a closer look, he swore it was his nemesis, Mr. Mystery, himself, staring at him with a single glowing, yellow eye, his costume patch covering the other.  Yet, something was different.  Though his figure was dark and barely discernible, he could tell his shoulders were narrower, his hips wider, and his clothes were all wrong.  Had he ever seen Stanford Pines wear a sweater before?  And was that a lab coat over it?  Something definitely wasn't right but he didn't have the time to ponder it further as the man chuckled and said in a voice that definitely wasn't Stanford's, "Some assembly required, am I right?"  
  
"Where am I?"  Gideon asked,  "What is all this and what is...  Was that machine?"  
  
"That machine, as you put it, is power.  You could use it to rule this whole world," the echoing voice crooned.  
  
"How?  Where do I find it?"  
  
"Oh, I think you already know that.  You just need to wake up and do something about it," the man said, smiling at him with a snaggletoothed grin as he snapped his fingers.  
  
Gideon's eyes fluttered open.  "Mmm," he moaned, lifting his head off of the Journal to find himself sitting at his desk in his pajamas, his hair still neatly wrapped in a towel from his shower.  Blinking, he scanned its surface, his desk lamp shining a spotlight onto his models of the Mystery Shack and its residents.  "There's something powerful hidden there and I'm gonna get it, Stanford Pines," he threatened, shifting his gaze down to find the journal open to the page detailing how to summon creature #362.  "Even if I DO have to summon that creature to do it..."  
  
The thought sent a shiver down his spine.  Something pricked at his forehead and he reached up to wipe it, appalled to find it was nothing more than common sweat.  
  
"Old man!" he shouted, not even bothering to look at his door to see if there was any sign of light beyond or any signal that his parents were still awake.  "I'm sweating in here!"  
  
"Alright, Gideon," his father replied, his gentle tone muffled by the closed door.  "I'll knock the AC down a notch and you let me know if that helps."  
  
Satisfied, his gaze drifted back down to the journal.  
  
"It's you giving me these dreams...  Isn't it?" he asked, eyes shifting back and forth, searching the dark corners of his room.  "It all sounds pretty dang splendid but..." he said, focusing on the cursive word "summoning" written in bold on the open page.  "The idea of summoning makes it sound rather serious.  Like I might have to give up part of my soul in a deal or something."  
  
"Gideon, sugarpot, do you want a popsicle to help you cool down?" his father asked, his drawled yell barely audible.  
  
Frowning, his voice strained as he shouted, "I can't hear you if your head's in the freezer, old man!"  
  
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice slightly louder, "Do you-"  
  
"What flavor?!" he demanded, his fists pounding against the desk, knocking over the figures of the Pines family.  
  
"There's a blue raspberry left that has your name on it."  
  
"Oh goody!" he chimed, his tone suddenly light and cheery as he uncurled his fists to clap his hands.  He pushed his chair out from the desk, glancing one more time at the open journal.  
  
"No," he said, closing the book  "Like I already said, creature.  Not yet.  I still have a trick or two up my sleeve I need to try first.  I just need to find out where Stanford keeps the deed to the Mystery Shack and it'll be all mine!" his words escalated into an evil cackle, echoing through his room.  
  
"Gideon, are ya' coming?  I don't want this here popsicle to melt."  
  
His laugh switched to giddy glee with his answer, "be right there!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kdooxflqdwlrqv. Bxs. Wkdw'v hadfwob zkdw wkrvh duh.
> 
> ~The "duh" up there is a happy accident...
> 
> ~Stan wasn't lying when he said he tried to save the kids from the windstorm blowing them into the pit. He's a little more cautious about some things in this AU.
> 
> ~Ford's hallucination was loosely based on [ one I had a few years ago. ](https://mayakaed.deviantart.com/art/Green-ruins-158616378)
> 
> ~Stay tuned to [ rum-and-shattered-dreams ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/) if your're interested in garden updates. I'll post some photos soon.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Previous codes decoded ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)


	24. Poolside Plots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start falling into place for Gideon, everyone tries to cope with the heat, Bill gets frustrated, and Ford finds... Well, not quite a friend but close enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~New ending poll is up! I went with the top three answers aside from the actual top answer - "Don't care (what happens to Bill), just want to see Ford free from him." I'll use the popularity of that option to set priorities and determine where the focus should be for the future. Whether that ends up being fluff, angst, or both, we'll see. ;)~~ (Poll Ended)
> 
> There's art inspired by Gideon's dream in chapter 23 created by the lovely zonerobotnik [ here ](http://zonerobotnik.tumblr.com/post/175215040187/he-struggled-against-the-pull-twisting-and).
> 
> And [ here's that garden update promised last time ](http://rum-and-shattered-dreams.tumblr.com/post/175187265758/awww-the-moon-cactus-bloomed-for-my-birthday)
> 
> Sorry I didn't have a chapter for father's day. I have an idea for a good father-themed part but it doesn't fit into the plot quite yet. It'll still be a bit before it does but I do want to share some love for the caring fathers out there too.
> 
> Ugh... I really didn't want to split this part into two chapters but I also didn't want to not post something this week and I've been having a lot of trouble working out what needs to happen when. It's slowed down the whole process for this bit of plot :/. Anyway, sorry about that. Hopefully I'll be getting back to weekly updates soon. I have a pretty fair outline for some upcoming parts so it should move along faster and pick up the pace plot-wise quite a bit once I get some things established. Anyway, thanks for sticking with me and reading along!

Gideon flung his bedroom door open and rushed inside, giggling as the carpet tickled his bare feet.  It wasn't often he'd opt out of wearing at least a pair of socks but even in the air conditioning, the summer heat had left him in little more than his blue striped pajama shorts.  But, with a tummy full of waffles and orange juice, he finally felt awake enough to continue unraveling the meaning of the recent variations of his recurring dreams.  He shut the door behind him, his giggle shifting to a cackle, and dragged his chair over to the desk.  Standing on its seat, he pulled his curtains closed, blocking out all but a slit of morning light framing them.  
  
His desk lamp flickered on with a click of its switch, shining a spotlight on his model of the Mystery Shack and its surroundings and casting his face in stark shadows, like a camper telling ghost stores around a fire.  He leaned over, arranging popsicle stick trees and referencing an array of photos to paste them onto a poster board layout depicting the parking lot, path to the gift shop, and the dirt road leading to to the shack in scribbled crayon.  "Every dream has one thing in common," he muttered to himself, glancing back to the photos of the shack neatly arranged on his desk, each of them taken from a different angle, then checking his work again to assure his model was as accurate as possible.  "I fall through the ground in the same spot.  Somewhere right around..." he hung on the word, using his best judgment to compare the photos to his model.  "Here!"  With a red crayon in hand, he marked an X in the center of a triangle formed from a point at the museum entrance at the front of the shack, a point at the gift shop entrance at its side, and a point where a tree stump marked the edge of its clearing in the woods.  
  
"It's got to be there.  If I could just get my hands on that property and do some digging, all that power would be mine!  All mine!" he said with a growing smile.  "I just need to figure out where Stanford keeps that wittle ol' deed and-"  
  
"Gideon, sugar pot, now, don't tell me you went back to bed on a fine day like this," his father's voice interrupted, accompanied by a light knock on his door.   
  
"Dang it old man," he answered, his fists slamming on the table and nearly knocking over the wooden models of Stan and Dipper, "how many times must I tell you not to bother me when I'm devising the fall of my enemies!"  
  
"I'm sorry, Gideon, It's just, I thought you might like it if I drove you down to the pool today."  
  
"Ick.  The public pool," he thought, grimacing.   "It's like the being on a crowded bus but wet.  And I just restyled my hair this morning."  
  
"What with it bein' so hot and all, I bet the whole town is out there," his father continued, "It would probably be pretty fair publicity for the Tent of Telepathy if you made an appearance."  
  
Gideon had to admit he was right.  It was a good opportunity to mingle with the townspeople and boost his popularity.  He didn't even have to touch the water if he didn't want to.  Finding a nice chair in the shade and surveying the scene would be enough.  Maybe Mabel would even be there.  With that thought in mind he answered, "Oh goody!" and slid down from his chair.  Within moments he stepped through his door clad in swim shorts that looked like he'd fashioned them from an American flag, a tote bag with a Tent of Telepathy logo printed on it strapped over his shoulder.  
  
  
****  
  
  
Freshly changed into his suit, Gideon emerged from the dressing room to find his father waiting for him outside, already changed from his blindingly orange swimsuit into a red tropical shirt and khakis.  Tossing his keys into the air and catching them, he asked, "Ready to head home, son?"  
  
Gideon let out a humph, crossing his arms.  
  
Bud took that as a yes and led the way to his car of the week, a white sedan from 1999 he'd "borrowed" from Gleeful's auto sale.  Gideon followed behind, scuffing his soles against the ground every other step and his hands jammed into his pockets.  He remained silent, watching the pot holes pass underfoot and kicking loose gravel every so often until his father lifted him up and buckled him into the center back seat.  He didn't even complain about the miasma of stale heat nor the puff of pure hellfire that came out of the air conditioning vents as the car's engine rumbled and sputtered.  
  
As the car backed out of it's parking space, he lifted a handkerchief to his forehead, dabbing away sweat while attempting to keep his foundation intact.  Finally, as the slightest touch of cooler air blew through the vents, he spoke up in a huff.  "If I'd known the entire Pines family was going to be at the pool today, I'd've gone to the dang Mystery Shack and looked around for that deed!"  Clutching his powder blue tote bag to his chest, he added with a near-growl, "And seeing Mabel with that...  Admittedly handsome young man with the long hair was too much!"  
  
"I bet that's nothing more than an infatuation, son," Bud said in his most comforting twang, the car's signal clicking as he turned out of the pool's parking lot.  
  
"Are you kidding?  He played the guitar for her!" his voice cracked the slightest bit with his yell, his hands wringing the strap of his tote bag.  
  
"Sure sure," Bud soothed, glancing up at the glowering image of his son in the rear view mirror, "but does he have his own business and TV specials?"  
  
Pouting, he answered, "No..."  
  
"But who does?" he urged, lowering the visor to shield his eyes from the evening sun.  
  
In a mopey whisper, his hands fidgeting with the hem of a monogrammed towel peeking out of his tote bag, he replied, "Me..."  
  
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you," his father prompted, his voice encouraging.  
  
His tone shifted from bitter to triumphant as he said, "Wittle ol' me!"   
  
"That's the spirit," his father affirmed, his knuckles tapping against the steering wheel in a victorious gesture.  "And anyway, you sure did a number on that ol' Stanford Pines, taking his chair right out from under him.  You even managed to get him sent to pool jail for fightin' back."  
  
"I did, didn't I?" he said, his lips lifting to a smug smile, "And watching Dipper fall all over himself to impress the Corduroy girl was kind of entertainin'."  
  
"It was pretty darn hilarious.  And now that he's one of them life guards, he's going to have a heck of a time," Bud added, "That Mr. Poolcheck is not a stable man, you know.  I heard that last year, he made that Thompson boy guard the storage room every single night because he was afraid someone was borrowing their pool skimmer.  I wouldn't be surprised if he had the Pine's boy working twenty-four hour shifts by the end of the week.  If he's not fired first."  
  
"Hee hee, serves him right for what he did to me!"  Gideon's vindictive giggle faded as his focus shifted.  Dipper wasn't his main concern right now, nor was Mabel.  Those pieces would fall into place once he solved his Mystery Shack conundrum.  He thought about dropping by the shack tomorrow but, there was no guarantee the whole family would make another trip to the pool.  Even if they did, he'd have no idea when they'd return again and the last thing he wanted was to be caught breaking in, especially in broad daylight.  Even if Stan closed the museum and gift shop, there was still too much of a chance of tourists dropping by expecting it to be open.  No, he needed a plan, some way of knowing they'd all be out of the house, preferably, after dark.  He needed to keep an eye on them for a while, rather like a spy on a reconnaissance mission, he imagined.  
  
_If Dipper has to go back tomorrow for his life guard job,_  he thought,  _and Mabel will likely go back to see that that...  Ugh.  That jerk who's tryin to steal my precious plum away from me!  ...I need to keep an eye on that situation for sure...  Anyway, does that mean Stanford really will close up shop and join them?  Perhaps...  Perhaps...  Wait...  that's it!  It's a bit of a gamble but if he's there, I have to be there too, earlier than him so I can already be in his chair when he arrives!_  
  
Gideon's inadvertent grin melted from menacing to adorable.  "Daddy,"  he asked in his most charming cadence, "can you drop me off at the pool again before you go to work tomorrow?"  
  
"Why, Gideon, the pool doesn't even open until-."  
  
"Don't patronize me old man!" he spat, his fists clenched.  "I know what I'm doing.  Just get me there first thing in the morning!"  
  
"Well, alrighty then," Bud said with a shrug, "If that's what you want."  
  
"Oh, and can we stop by Ward Lee Crafts on the way home?" he asked, his tone snapping back to sugary sweet.  "I'm gonna need their industrial sized super glue...  For um.  My models."  
  
"But, Gideon, that's an hour drive out of our wa-"  
  
"Pweeeease?" he begged lifting his head so his puppy eyes were visible to his father in the rear view mirror.  
  
"Alright, I can't say no to my sugar pie.  Now what would you like for dinner?  We'll pick up your mother and make a night out of it."  
  
After a filling dinner at Redd's Steak and Fish Grill and a trip to the glue section of the craft store, Gideon fell fast asleep on the car ride home and awoke well-rested the next morning, half-relieved and half-disappointed that he'd seen no sign of his recurring dreams.  
  
  
****   
  
  
Once Dipper and Mabel were settled into their attic room, Stan left the comfort of the cool breeze drifting through his bedroom’s open window and tip-toed down the darkened stairway into the kitchen’s stale, stuffy air.  Resisting the urge to open the window, he reached for the fridge door only to find a stronger temptation, the idea of climbing inside and staying there for a few hours.  Pushing the idea aside, he grabbed a lime green Stupperware container he'd hidden a prepared salad from Gravity Fruit’s Market in and assured its lid was sealed tight.  In a Mister Y Hack tote bag, a misprinted sample product he'd received a few days ago, he loaded sodas, the salad, and a resealable bag with a few leftover slices of pizza.  
  
"Sorry, Ford.  Hope you're alright with a couple cold slices of carnivore's choice," he mumbled to himself.  "I gotta smuggle a working microwave and a mini-fridge down there sometime."  The last thing he needed was she smell of pizza stinking up the kitchen again and waking up the kids.  It was bad enough that he'd had to use the oven ever since Dipper and Soos had hammered the last nail in his old microwave's coffin that day they'd used it to blow up hot dogs.  "Shoulda made those knuckleheads buy me a new one," he grumbled, slinging the tote bag over his shoulder.  "Oh well," he sighed, wiping sweat from his brow.  As he lowered his hand, he glanced at his watch, his eyes widening.  He nearly yelled aloud, barely confining his haste to his thoughts instead, "Ah! gotta get going!  I'm gonna miss the beginning!"  
  
He shuffled into the gift shop, his slippers gripped in one hand to avoid the flip-flopping of their soles against the floorboards.  Once behind the vending machine, he slipped them back on and jogged down the creaking stairs.  He hummed his way through the elevator ride, trying to calm the increasing twitch of his nerves.  No matter how many times he made this trip, he couldn't avoid the rise of turmoil in his mind - the worry of what he'd find on the other side of Ford's door.  He shook his head, dispelling the visions seeping in, the sight of blood splatters, the sound of a gravely moan...   _Stop it!  
  
_ At least the air was cooler outside of the elevator, though the dank smell of old oil mixed with rusting metal wasn't particularly soothing.  He took a deep breath and navigatied through the dim blue light of the portal's old control room, stopping for a moment outside Ford’s door.  From behind, he could hear the muffled, overly-excited McTaco Hut jingle of "I'm wanting the good stuff" from the TV.  
  
_That's a good sign, right?_  
  
He reached out and rapped his knuckles against the gnarled wood.  
  
"Oh Stanley!  You're just in time.  Come in, come in.  It's going to start any minute," Ford replied, sounding fairly cheerful.  
  
_Phew.  Sounds like no major injuries tonight._  Stan thought, pushing open the door.  As amber light washed over him, he scanned the padded space beyond the bars to find his brother pushing himself upright from a beanbag in front of the TV.  His hair hung over his forehead in greasy curls and his stubble was nearly long enough to be called a beard again.  As Stan stepped closer, he could tell from more than the just the sight of his scarlet sweater that he hadn't bothered to change into the fresh clothes he'd brought down a few days ago.  
  
_Depression is a strange thing...  Or is it some kind of preoccupation distracting him again?_   Stan wondered to himself as he caught sight of Ford's welcoming smile and the ridiculousness of the enormous eye on the cycloptopus patch staring back at him.  Either way, he was glad the therapist's office had called back yesterday afternoon with an appointment time and that Ford seemed alright with going through with it.  Though, he still seemed hesitant about the idea of Dr. Braum agreeing to be their plan B if anything happened to Stan and Soos.  When Stan had brought it up last night, he almost made the mistake of joking, "Don't hate me but-" before altering his phrasing to "I know you're weirded out by it but, Dr. Braum agreed to come check up on things if she doesn't get a call from me every Wednesday and Saturday.  She mentioned something about texting or something?  Guess I really should get one of those new phone things."  He'd joked, rambling on until he managed to shift the subject back to the tale of how he got Mabel to free him from the truth teeth.  
  
Ford did seem preoccupied, though.  It was as if there was something he wanted to say but when Stan had asked him, he seemed to ramble until he shifted the subject with the same verbal dexterity as Stan, himself.  For all he knew, Ford could be preoccupied with depression itself.  But, whether it was depression, preoccupation, or some combination of the two, he made a mental note to remind his brother to shower later and to try to get him to open up about whatever was on his mind.  For now, he was more than content to go along with the upbeat mood, regardless of whether or not it was an act on either or both of their parts.   
  
"Hey, wow," he commented, setting the misprinted tote bag on the floor, print side down.  "Seems like you got the coolest room in the house right now."  
  
"Oh, right," Ford answered, shifting forward to kneel beside the bars, "The news said these few days are going to be the hottest this summer.  How are you holding up upstairs?"  
  
"Well, my pants started on fire when I went outside this morning," Stan said with a bitter laugh, pausing to let out an oof as he kneeled on the floor pillow.  "Then I took the kids to the pool..."  
  
As he unloaded food and soda from the tote, he briefed Ford on their day at the pool, keeping his story short rather than using his narrative voice and showmanship style.  It had to fit into the time before the commercial break's end, after all.  He mentioned Dipper and Wendy's new lifeguard jobs, calling them both traitors for throwing him in pool jail when "that Gideon kid stole my chair!  I was just tryin' to take back what was mine!  The nerve!" he added, indignant.  But, his tone softened as he told Ford about Mabel's new crush on the strange but handsome young man who seemed to never leave the pool.  "Seems like this one actually really likes her back.  Not sure how I feel about that," Stan admitted.  "I wanna be happy for her but ya know...  If he hurts her...  I'll strangle him."  
  
"If he does, give him an extra punch for me as well," Ford added, watching Stan shift around on his floor pillow, wiggling and adjusting his boxers until he found a comfortable position facing the TV.    
  
Just as Ford started picking at his salad, an orchestral swell of music, heavy in violins, played through the speakers in considerably less volume than the commercial's jingles and sales pitches.  
  
"Turn it up, would ya," Stan requested, leaning forward on his folded legs.  
  
Ford complied, repeating "volume up" until the music hit its crescendo, the words "The Duchess Approves.  Return of Count Lionel," appearing as if written in cursive directly on the screen.  
  
"Here we go.  You ready for this?" Stan asked, his eyes fixed on the screen.  
  
"Not really.  No," Ford answered, sucking in a deep breath then altering his answer.  "Yes.  I'm ready."  
  
"I hope he doesn't ruin things for the duchess.  She was so happy."  
  
"Indeed," Ford answered, leaning forward and inadvertently mirroring Stan's position, "I hope he finds some closure and his own happiness."  
  
The two watched with wide eyes as the duchess, like a prim and proper version of Mabel, searched for an appropriate match for the man who'd missed his chance with her, believing that despite his mistakes, he deserved the sort of happiness she'd found.  During commercial breaks they griped about how he managed to say all of the wrong things to Miss Annabelle on their first date then cheered them both on when they found the courage to speak their minds.  They couldn't help uttering a sappy "awww" when he finally saw the appropriate moment to hold her hand.  When Count Lionel found himself locked in combat, swords clashing as he fought the evil duke who threatened to steal his newfound happiness, the twins sat on the edges of their pillows, clenching the first knuckle of their forefingers between their teeth.  They could only hope their uproarious laughter wasn't audible upstairs when they saw Miss Annabelle win the fight by bashing the duke over the head with a bed warmer, crumpling his top hat against his slicked back hair.  
  
After the wedding and final kiss, the credits rolled and the twins rambled on, talking over each other in their excitement.  
  
"I know it was a cliched romance scenario but if one wanted to write one, this is a shining example of how to go about it."  
  
"I'm just so happy for them!"  
  
"The wedding was brimming with symbolism."  
  
"And Annabel was a hell of a gal!"  
  
"Their characters were so well written and as they interacted, they learned from each other, supported one-another, and became better people!"  
  
"And the duchess bawling when they finally kissed...  Just...  I couldn't help it, I did too!"  
  
"Me too!"  
  
They definitely weren't crying happy tears over a sappy movie as an outlet for their own troubles.  
  
Definitely not.  
  
As they sniffled and the conversation dwindled, Stan gathered up the dishes and empty soda cans into the tote, hesitating with every move of his hand.  Even though Ford seemed as engrossed in the movie as he was, there were times when he glanced back and caught him staring down at his own fidgeting hands.  Something was still bothering him and he'd failed to ask what...  Or breach the subject of showers.  He couldn't help wondering, briefly, how he'd get that sweater smelling decent again.  
  
Lifting the tote and scratching the back of his neck, Stan pondered how to bring it up delicately but Ford beat him to it...  Not so delicately.  
  
"Hey, Stan?  Sorry if I reek."  
  
"Oh heh, what?  You don't..." he stuttered, shaking his head, "I mean...  It's not  _that_  bad."  
  
"It's alright.  I can smell myself," he said, grunting as he rocked forward onto his knees and stood.  "I've just...  I guess I haven't felt up to much of anything the past few days."  
  
"Yeah...  I know what you mean," Stan empathized, his shoulders sagging.  There certainly were times in his own past when he'd smelled worse thanks to lacking either the physical or emotional resources to shower.  He sighed, setting the bag on the ground again and asked, "You ready to talk about whatever's been bothering you yet?"  
  
Ford nodded, one hand wrapping around a padded bar.  "Stanley," he began, "I didn't want to worry you but, for the past few days I've been having strange wombats."  
  
"Um... " Stan raised an eyebrow and repeated, trying his best not to snicker, "Wombats?"  
  
"Yes, perhaps it's the medication Dr. Braum prescribed but they've been incredibly vivid, as if I've actually been transported to-"  
  
Stan couldn't help it anymore.  Laughter sputtered out as he joked, "Pffft, Australia?"  
  
"What?  No!  Stanley this is-" Ford paused, his agitation fading into exasperation.  "Oh, that's wrong, isn't it?" he sighed, resting his forehead against the bars, his eyes focused on his hands as they draped over the horizontal one.  "He did it again, didn't he?"  
  
"I think he must have," Stan said, his chest visibly rising and falling in a sigh.  "Sorry for joking, I couldn't help it.  Wanna try another word for what you're trying to tell me?"  
  
"I've been having..." he paused, trying to come up with a synonym.  "Marsupials. Ugh that's not right, is it?"  
  
Stan blinked and replied, "...I don't think so."  With another deep breath, he attempted to reason through things, "Whatever it is, you said it’s vivid so like...  Dreams or nightmares or somethin'?"  He paused waiting for a reply but Ford simply clutched his head, his eye clenched close in frustration.  As far as he knew, Bill had made Ford believe that dreams were a type of animal and nightmares were a furry, admittedly adorable, creature from an ocean away.  "Um," Stan explained the best he could without a dictionary in hand, "dreams are when you fall asleep and it feels like you're acting out or watching a movie in your head and it can be anything from a boring slice of life to an epic fantasy.  Nightmares are the horror movie versions."  
  
"Dreams...  Nightmares," Ford pondered, his grip on his hair loosening and his hands trailing down his face.  "No," he finally said, "That's still not right."  
  
"Do you think it's hallucinations, then?" Stan asked.  "That's when you see something that ain't real but it feels like it is and you don't necessarily gotta be asleep."  
  
"That!"  Ford said, pointing to Stan as if to emphasize the correctness of his suggestion.  "That's it.  Hallucinations," he added, sighing and draping his hands over the bar again. "He knew I wanted to tell you about them.   _That's_  why he possessed me this morning.  He must have replaced the words to make a fool of me.  But yes.  At first, I thought perhaps I was over-tired, like when we were kids and I used to hallucinate that our bedroom layout was reversed and absurd things like that.  It began simple, with a vision of what looked like Xolotl floating in white mist.  That one was the other morning, right around when Bill threw my glasses.  Then later that night, while you were visiting and Bill possessed me to interrogate you, I saw darkness cluttered with, well, I'm not sure what.  Asteroids, perhaps?  It was far too brief to make out much.  Anyway, the most disturbing one came shortly after you left.  It felt like I was there, Stanley," he said, his tone dire.  
  
"Where?" he asked, worry washing over his face.  He couldn't be sure if it was shadow or something else but he could swear the skin had darkened under Ford's eye.  
  
"In a world that had been completely destroyed," Ford answered with a shudder.  "Every life snuffed out- I can still smell it-"  
  
"Whoa," Stan said, quelling the urge to joke that he might just be smelling himself again.  
  
"After you left last night," Ford continued, "I had one where I could see my younger self sleeping in the woods.  I could practically feel the warmth of the sun and smell the autumn leaves.  And earlier this morning, I saw," he gulped, stopping for a breath, "I saw the same monsters who were on the other side of the portal before you pulled me back out.  They were cheering, celebrating something."  
  
"Yikes.  Those aren't quite like the nightmares you used to have, are they?"  
  
"No," he answered, shaking his head, one eye closed as if searching within for answers he didn't have.  "It feels different.  Like I could reach out and touch things that aren't there."  
  
"That does sound like hallucinations, huh?  I'll call Dr. Braum sometime tomorrow then," Stan said, his hands perched on his hips.  "I promised the kids I'd take them to the pool again but you want me to check in on you before we head out?"  
  
"No, that's alright," he said, waving one hand as if to reassure him, "You should probably go get to sleep, then.  You'll want to be there early to get your favorite chair, right?"  
  
"Ha ha, damn straight.  Alright," Stan said, bending to retrieve the tote bag.  He didn't realize the print side faced out until Ford let out hearty laugh.  "Har-dee-har.  Yeah, I know.  The printers messed up bad this time, didn't they?  'S what I get for going with Thrift-E-Print.  But seriously," he said, his tone shifting to match his words, "Ford?"  
  
Ford took a breath and adjusted his demeanor before answering, "Yes, Stanley?"  
  
"For the love of Tesla or whoever that guy is you got a crush on, Go have a shower.  I'll work out something soon to get you a shave again and we'll keep working on figuring everything else out."  
  
"Oh.  Right," he chuckled, wringing his hands, "I will."  
  
  
****  
  
  
Stan yawned as the snack machine gave a final click, sealing off the door hidden behind.  The gift shop was still, the air stuffy despite cooling about ten degrees in the absence of sunlight.  In the pale glow from the windows, he took one step toward the door labeled "employees only" when he swore he saw a flash of light.  "Must be a summer storm," he thought, listening for a rumble of thunder only to hear a key click in the lock across the room.  Torn between making a run for it into the living room and wondering if this was some sort of break in and he should dive behind the counter for his baseball bat, he found himself simply turning to investigate.  The door eased open and a spot of light flickered across the floor and right into his eyes and all he could think to do was shield them and scream.  
  
"AAAH!" a voice joined in from the door accompanied by the thud of a book hitting the floor and the clatter of the flashlight dropping and rolling, its light flickering over post card displays and glaring off snow globes until it settled on the figure in the door.    
  
"M-Mabel?" Stan said, lowering his arm.  
  
"Grunkle Stan?" She replied, bending to pick up the book.  
  
In the flashlight's glow, Stan could finally see it was her glitter-coated scrapbook.  As she bent to retrieve the flashlight, it glinted over her equally glittered bathing suit and the sheen of dampness across the clump of hair draped over her shoulder.  Switching off the flashlight, she gave an awkward chuckle and said, "I won't ask if you don't."  
  
Though he wanted to know why she felt the need to sneak out, though he wanted to express his worry and possibly even impose some consequence for what was potentially a dangerous move on her part, he was too tired to handle any more questions or suspicion.  Instead, he simply answered, "Deal."  
  
"Mabel?  Mabel, what's going on!" Dipper's voice drew closer, his feet pattering across the floor.  
  
Mabel ran through the "employees only" door, shushing Dipper.  "Dipper, quiet!  Don't wake up Grunkle Stan, I'll be in soooo much trouble," she said, her voice drifting away  
  
Stan leaned against the door, straining to hear Dipper's answer, "But, I thought I heard you scream."  
  
"Pffft.  Let me guess, you and Wendy had another horror movie marathon tonight, didn't you?"  
  
Stan could barely hear the reply. "...Maybe...  Alright yeah we did."

  
  
****  
  
  
  
Ford emerged from the bathroom with damp curls hanging around his ears, his stubble still in that uncomfortable not-quite-a-beard state but, at least he was clean and so were the black jersey pants and grey T-shirt he'd finally changed into.  He had to admit the smell of Clover Spring soap and GeneriCuddle fabric softener was refreshing, so much so that he inhaled deeply, focusing on the small pleasure, something his younger self would have taken for granted but that his current self could cling to like a life raft in an ocean.  After all these years, Stanley still used the same brand their mother had.  Some things never changed.  Some things still felt like home.  
  
A dull clunk halted his thoughts.  He snapped his head up, searching for the source.  
  
"Too hot for a sweater tonight, I take it," an oddly familiar voice that was neither Stanley's gravely grousing nor Bill's nasaly whine echoed from somewhere beyond the bars, sounding almost as if it came from the television, but the screen was dark.  
  
Ford stepped closer to the bars, scanning the space beyond from right to left then back again.  The corner to his left stood in darkness, the plants' grow light turned off for the night.  The only sound he could make out was the odd drip of leftover water clinging to the faux rock formation of the fountain.  Every book, box, and knickknack on the shelf unit was in its usual place, coated in a faint layer of dust.  The fishing hat Stan had personalized for him still hung above the cedar chest beside the closed door.  None of the photos or drawings had fallen from their places on the wood-paneled wall but as his gaze rested upon them, something clanked and this time he knew for sure it came from somewhere above the television.  
  
He looked up to the heating vent, squinting as he wondered, "Ugh, did a leprecorn get stuck in the house again?  Can't be, I'd be able to hear-" he cut off his own thought, squeezing his eye shut like it would help as he warned himself, "No don't even think it, it'll be stuck in my head for a week....  And it's too late..."  His eyebrows flattened as Danny Boy, in specifically the version played by a leprecorn's horn, looped in his head.  "It wouldn't be quite so bad if it didn't sound like something from the 8-bit video games Stan and I played back in the 80's," he thought.  "Of all the things Bill erased over the years, why couldn't leprecorns have been one of them?" he added, shouting within his own mind in an attempt to drown out the tinny tune.  
  
Another clank sounded and he opened his eye, looking up again.  
  
"Gah!"  He stumbled back, his arm lifted as if to shield himself as he swore he saw two waxy eyes peering out at him through a pair of square glasses.  
  
"Hm, what's that say?" the voice asked, the eyes squinting through a slit in the vent and down at Ford's exposed arm, "'Bill...  Bill was here?'  So, who is Bill and why is that tattooed on your arm?"  
  
"It's not a tattoo," Ford answered indignantly, thrusting his fists down at his sides.  "And who are you?" he added, his mind finally sorting out the more pressing matter.  
  
"I'm the decapitated head of Wax Larry King, coming to you live from the heating vent.  Our first guest tonight is the real Dr. Stanford Pines who is apparently a hermit living in, what is this, anyway, some sort of basement prison?"  
  
"Wax...  wait," he said, his shoulders lowering as he lifted one finger in a curious gesture.  "So it really is true, then!" he continued, galloping over pillows as he jogged to the bars in front of the TV.  "What the kids said about the wax figures!  Incredible!  But why are you in the ducts?"  
  
"It seemed like a good place to hide out for a while," he answered, head tipping to the side a little to mimic a shrug.  
  
"Does anyone else know you're here?" Ford asked, grasping the bars as panic hit him, "Have you told anyone else I'M here?"  
    
"I hope no one knows or else I'm not hiding very well.  And no,  I won't tell if you don't."  
   
"Deal," he agreed, sighing in relief only to fall into a fresh wave of worry.  "Wait, how do you know who I am?  Exactly how long have you been watching me?"  
  
"I hear things.  Mostly catch your brother muttering to himself in his office.  I don't actually come down here much, too hard to climb back up with no hands and all, but I woke up tonight nearly melting and it's usually cooler down here."  
  
"Still a bit warm," he said, scratching his stubble, "but yes, it does tend to stay about the same temperature year-round down here.  Interesting, really," he rambled, managing to bore the wax head trying to interview him, "how it can feel warmer in the winter because it's so cold upstairs yet cooler in the summer because it's so hot up-."  
  
"Yes, fascinating," he interrupted flatly, "So you're down here in a mostly padded room.  Tell me about that."  
  
"Well, you see I...  Damn it," Ford's shoulders tensed, his hands gripping the bars as he clenched his eye shut, struggling against the invading presence in his mind, "I guess  _he's_  going to tell-"  
  
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" Bill's lifted Ford's hands like a cartoon villain laughing triumphantly, forcing Ford's eye open to reveal his signature yellow glow.  "Well isn't this entertaining!  A talking wax head.  You're weird enough to join me and my minions, ya know," he said, pointing toward the vent.  
  
"It looks like our second guest has arrived," the wax representation of Larry King announced, "He seems to be some sort of spirit possessing the body of Dr. Pines.  Would you care to introduce yourself?"  
  
"Name's Bill Cipher, but I'm not here to talk to you," he quipped, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture.  "I got some things to take care of in this guy's head and my schedule's kind of busy tonight, places to be, people's dreams to manipulate, so unless you want to make a deal and help me out, we're done here."  
  
Ford's body stiffened, his eye squeezing closed again.  From the dark corner of his own mind, he jumped forward screaming, "D-don't!  I know we don't know each other but all you have to do is look at me to understand," he warned, realizing he'd actually spoken aloud and managed to gesture to the scars on his own arms.  "Just trust me.  Don't listen to him!"  His words ended in an audible groan that faded as he felt himself pulled back into his own mind.  
  
"Whoa there, brainiac," he heard Bill grumble, "You're getting feisty in your old age, aren'tcha?"  He barely caught the last word as all sound and visual from the outside world blacked out.  
  
"Did I really just..."  Ford wondered.  "No.  Bill must have let me have control for a moment like every other time I've been able to answer him.  But that makes no sense.  Every other time he's let me speak, it's been as if it's purely for his own amusement, to listen to me fight back in futility then make a fool of me, like some cruel game of wits.  Why would he let me speak when he knew I was shouting out warnings not to take his deal?  Did he just not care?  I mean, I could see him thinking a wax head might not actually be of any use to him but still...  This felt different...  But...  Ugh I don't know!  What's going..." the word "on" trailed off as the darkness of his mind seemed to take shape into a vast room.  Though it there was barely any light, he could make out dirt walls supported by wooden beams.  
  
"Another hallucination?" he wondered as he glanced around.  Though he couldn't actually see much, somehow he knew there were boxes and machine parts surrounding him, parts that seemed unearthly...  
  
And that's when it hit him.  
  
"Wait!  This is the storage space!"  
  
When he and Stan dismantled the Portal, they recycled everything they could but a majority of the parts were...  Borrowed from the alien ship hidden under the valley floor.  They'd discussed returning them but it sounded too risky.  If those parts fell into the wrong hands, there was far too great a chance Bill could get his hands on them...  Or rather, some unsuspecting pawn's hands.  After thinking it through, they’d decided to keep them in the basement and build Ford's room as a facade to hide them.  At least they’d be safe as long as they occupied the shack.  
  
Ford looked around again, squinting through the darkness at what he could swear was a short, human figure.  Before he could get a closer look, the vision dissolved and he was plunged into darkness yet again.  
  
  
****  
  
  
"Aren'tcha," Bill repeated.  "Hey, Fordsy.  Hey!  Don't tell me you wore yourself out again."  When he stepped aside to let Ford answer and no reply came, he chuckled to himself, "maybe you can resist me now but it sure takes the wind outta you, huh?"  
  
"Well, this is interesting," the wax head mused, watching the man seemingly hold a one-sided conversation with himself.  
  
"Oh well,” Bill said with a shrug, “Let's just take care of those pesky memories, shall we?"  With that, Ford's eye closed and his body slumped down against the padded floor, leaning limp and motionless against the bars.  
  
Bill found himself back in Ford's mindscape, the familiar bookcases looming over him in the dim, antiquated study.  Floating from bookcase to bookcase, his yellow glow illuminating shelves as he passed, he scanned titles and glanced at the labels on boxes and bottles.  "Now," he hummed to himself, his gaze passing over the paper-cluttered desktop and moving up to the drawers above.  "Where were those stubborn... Ah there!"  
  
He reached out to a shelf above the roll top desk where one book stood out, its leather crisp and shiny in comparison to the dull tatters of the others, but more-so because the title looked as though it had been scribbled on a sheet of paper and glued over the spine.  Bill levitated it from the shelf finding the front much the same aside from an edge of the label curling up.  He reached out, his hand swiping over the word "Hallucinations" as he pressed it back down.  
  
"You just keep coming back, don't you?  Let's try this again," he said to the book, lifting his hand to direct its flight high in the air.  He guided it toward one of the tallest book cases and let it drop behind.  
  
His whole body huffed with his deep breath as he griped, "If I look down and find you back on that shelf again, I'm gonna..."  He hung on the word as he looked back to the shelf above the desk.  "ARGH!  What do I have to do to get rid of this thing?!"  
  
He flung his hand back, the book flying from the shelf and levitating before him again.  He pressed down the label once more, annoyed that it seemed to have peeled up even further.  This time, he glanced around the room, his eye resting on a ragged box with a dagger plunged into its lid and a label on its front reading "Crampelter".  With his other hand, he levitated the lid and directed the book inside.  He swiped his hand down, slamming the lid back on and hopefully stabbing the dagger straight through it.  
  
His whole body heaved as he turned back to the desk to find..  
  
"AAAAARG!  DUMB MEMORY!" his body blazed red as he raged, "Why.  Can't.  I.  Hide.  You?!"  
  
He flung his hand back again, the book practically jumping from the shelf.  With a snap of his fingers he set it on fire watching as it burned to ash yet when he looked to the floor, he found no smoldering debris.  The redness of his body ignited in flame as he looked up yet again, finding the book right back in its place on the shelf.  Before he could yell again, he felt an odd pressure in his head, almost like a headache but deep inside his mind.  
  
"Oh no.  Not again, Fordsy!" he fretted, his body shifting back to yellow as he fought past the odd sensation to glance back at the pristine book just in time to see its spine widen ever so slightly.  Exasperated, all he could manage in response was, "Well...  This complicates things."  
  
  
****    
  
  
Ford awoke to find himself slumped against the bars of his cell.  They may have been padded but given the pains in his shoulder and head, they were certainly never meant to be a pillow.  Through his haze he barely heard someone call to him, "Dr. Pines?"  
  
He groaned at the garbled voice, rubbing his head as he sat up.  
  
"Dr. Pines?" the voice repeated, echoing through the heating duct behind him.  He turned around, squinting in the amber light as he looked up to find the head of wax Larry King still watching over him through the vent.  
  
Tired and annoyed, he asked in tone much harsher than he meant to, "Why are you still here?"  
  
"Uh..." he answered with an undertone of trepidation, "Dr. Pines?"  
  
"What?!" he snapped, wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a good eighteen hours.  
  
"What happened to your eye?"  
  
Ford reached up to the dampness dribbling from the corner of his relatively good eye.  His breath caught on the tightness of his throat as he paused, too afraid to lower his fingers and confirm his fears.  His hand shook as it moved into his line of vision.  At the sight, his entire body went numb, his mouth hanging open somewhere between a gasp and a silent scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xode! Zxk'q xk xii-mltbocri ybfkd lc mrob bkbodv zxqze x yobxh xolrka ebob?
> 
> Past end codes decoded [ here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e).
> 
> If Gideon didn't have any dreams, I wonder who Bill was in such a hurry to bother? Although, speaking of Gideon... I'm, uh... Going to keep pretending that's a desk he's using for his model of the shack because I just now realized it's actually a dresser. So um... Pretend with me?
> 
> Randomly, I kind of want to reflect on how odd it is to write Ford for this AU sometimes. He never had the experiences in the portal that shaped him into the action hero Ford we met in canon. He's also had 30 years of reconciliation with Stan and feels indebted to him alongside realizing long ago that they are still the best friends they were as kids. His personality became softer in some positive ways because of it.
> 
> That aside, Bill's meddling with his mind also affected his personality. By switching around words and hiding or rearranging memories, he effectively stripped away any confidence Ford had left in himself. He assumes he's wrong before being sure he's right and often doesn't offer corrections, contradictions, or information anymore because of how many times he's misremembered things. Add onto that, he's exhausted in every way. His determination runs thin at best.
> 
> On top of that, canon Ford, I think, is first and foremost an explorer. Sure he also loves science and the abnormal but, even as a kid he wanted to explore the unknown. Even if he's living in one place, he needs and craves the ability to explore it and learn everything he can about it. And now he's been stuck in one town for forty years and one room for twenty of them. That alone has been enough to fuel the portions of his depression that aren't already fed by his desire to know and spend time with his family and by the constant threat of injury to himself or Stan. I mentioned in a comment earlier that canon Ford and this Ford would likely hate each other until they each had a chance to share the experiences that made them into who they are and I still think that's pretty accurate.


	25. I Fought the Wall and the Wall Won

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raw and raging emotions are not something Ford deals with as eloquently as he'd like. Stan plans to watch out for the kids and defeat Gideon's chair-stealing schemes. Ford has a memory breakthrough and Bill's meddling in his mind backfires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Apologies for that title. It popped into my head and wouldn't leave so there it is...
> 
> ~Warnings - memories of genocide, visions of destruction, biting, mental and (mild) physical torture, this gets weird at the end...
> 
> ~Sorry this is so late, this time. Life has been a bit busier than usual. (Basically 90% of the people I know in real life, including myself, all have birthdays between mid-June and the end of July so... Lots of ice cream cake ;)) Also, the brain fog has been heavier than usual and I've been having trouble remembering what's going on from scene to scene and have to keep going back to figure it out...
> 
> ~Poor Dipper is trying so hard to just distract himself for a while. Maybe it's lucky that his crush on Wendy is pretty attention-consuming at the moment. But, it won't be long before he'll find himself neck-deep in mysteries again and unable to quell his curiosity.
> 
> ~Finally updated my [ deviantART ](https://www.deviantart.com/mayakaed) with some illustrations from this fic
> 
> ~WOO! There's art of Poor Ford from the end of chapter 24 drawn by the lovely Darrow Wyrlde [ here ](https://darrowwyrlde.tumblr.com/post/175655919022/i-was-doodling-while-waiting-for-my-lecture-to)
> 
> ~Bill's word replacement shenanigans show up again in this chapter so just in case, "sea otter" is still replacing "burden" as in journal 3 and "tatting" is still replacing research as in chapter 17.

Ford leapt up and darted for the bathroom, his hand swiping away the sticky streak dripping down his cheek before it had a chance to leave a dribbled trail of red across the padded floor.  The door clicked shut behind him and he threw off his eye patch and glasses, letting them clatter to the linoleum below.  Leaning over the sink, he cranked the tap on, turned to the coldest setting and scrubbed at his eye as if he could wash away the fact that it had ever bled at all.  
  
_No.  No.  Nonononononono.  This isn't happening.  It can't be happening.  It's not real.  It's another hallucination.  It's just a nightmare._ _Bill's making me imagine this._ _This can't be happening!_  
  
No matter how hard he tried to convince himself, it didn't erase the blurred streak of red pooling in the plastic basin and flowing down the drain.  Splash after splash of cold hit his face, seeped through his stubble, and dripped down his arms as gasped for air between them until finally, the water ran clear and he lifted one limp hand, barely finding the energy to turn the tap off.  He draped his arms over the sink's plastic sides and slumped over its front.  
  
"No..." he whispered, his voice hoarse in exhaustion as he refused to release the tears prickling the back of his eye.  
  
From somewhere in his chest, a burst of burning energy, a surge of sheer panic, streamed through his limbs and flooded his senses.  His face scrunched and contorted, every wrinkle deepening around eyes clenched closed.  He slammed his fists on the sink's edges, the force scraping its legs against the floor as a roar rumbled up through his throat, "NO!"  
  
His arms shook as his hands clutched the sink's sides, his lungs aching for air through erratic gasps and his head drooping between stiff shoulders.  As he lifted one hand to his right eye, his shoulders sagged.  His fingertips traced over its closed lid and, maybe it was just his imagination, maybe it was an extension of everything his outburst drained from within him but, it felt hallow despite the temporary prosthetic underneath.  Or maybe, he'd simply gotten used to wearing the patch and missed the sensation of soft fleece suggesting he should keep his eyelid closed.   Either way, catastrophic thoughts charged into his mind.  What would it be like when the other eye was the same?  Would it feel that empty?  Would  _he_  feel that empty?  Would the last time he'd ever use a proper drawing pen really have been when he doodled a silly sketch of a plaidypus twenty years ago?  Would he really never see a live one again?  
  
As his thoughts spiraled, his fingers drifted toward his left eye.  He rubbed its corners and sucked in a deep breath, hoping the dampness he felt had only been water dripping down from his hair.  
  
He let out an audible puff of relief to find no trace of red on his hand and wiped his cheek again just to be sure.  Even so, his fingers curled into a tense fist.  His hand was mere inches from his face but it still looked like an unfocused photo without his glasses on.  He lifted his head, squinting at the single light set into the linoleum-lined ceiling but, it remained nothing more than a pulsing splotch against even more blurriness.  To his left was yet another blotch, one he knew was the shower curtain, and to his right, he couldn't even make out the outline of the door against the wall.  His gaze shifted down again to see a pale blur instead of a utility sink.  
  
In something too close to a whimper for his liking, his worries spilled into words, "I can barely see without my glasses as it is..."  
  
He sighed at himself, trying to quell his anxieties and the trembling of his limbs as he bent to find his glasses.  He'd heard them clatter somewhere near the toilet, he thought.  His hand hovered less than an inch over the floor as he passed it back and forth, sweeping the area until it bumped into the frames and their elasticized strap.  Another breath puffed past his lips as he sat on the toilet seat's lid and positioned the patch and glasses in their proper places.  
  
With a scowl set deep in his face, he rolled his shoulders back and rounded on the door as if it had just insulted his mother, tearing it open.  Deaf to the voice from the vent asking "Dr. Pines, are you alright?", he stomped out and faced the padded wall at the back of his cell.  
  
One fist pounded into it, rattling the wood panels behind.  Then the next, hitting so hard there was a crack that could have been the wall, his knuckles, or both.  With a grunt, he backed away, steadying himself for a solid kick, channeling every bit of raging misery into his legs as the bottom of his foot collided with the padding.  He leapt up, kicking again and again, dust billowing from the padding with every blow.  
  
"It's never going to end is it?  It's just going to keep getting worse.  I'll never get out of here.  I'll never get to see the kids or  _any_  of the family.  I'll never see the forest again.  I'll never see the world!  I'll end up sitting down here alone in the dark with nothing but sickening hallucinations looping in my mind!"  
  
He spun around, kicking again, the whole wall rattling under the impact.  
  
"Stupid Bill.  Stupid deal.  Stupid ME!  I know it was a mistake!  I know I screwed up!  Haven't I been punished enough?!  Was it really so bad that I deserve  _this_?!  It's not...  It's not fair!"  He wasn't sure exactly who he was addressing as he ranted, Bill, a god, or some greater will of the universe.  "Haven't you taken enough from me already?!"  
  
He kicked and kicked, throwing in a punch every so often and losing track of the foul language spewing through his lips until his head throbbed and he dropped to his knees, sweat dripping from his hair and soaking through his shirt.  He pressed his forehead against the padding, one fist still weakly beating against the floor despite the ache of raw knuckles, the other clutching a pillow.  Finally, he rolled himself around, his back against the wall, the pillow scrunched between his heaving chest and sore knees, hands grasping its sides.  He lowered his head, trying to scream into it but his voice did little more than croak dryly.  
  
Within moments, the exhaustion of his muddled mind and limp limbs, combined with the effects of his medication, left him slumped over on his side, drifting into what was sure to be an uncomfortable slumber.    
  
Echoing inside the heating vent, the voice of wax Larry King emulated the television presence of the human he'd been modeled after, "And on that note, we'd like to thank our guests, Dr. Stanford Pines and Mr. Bill Cipher.  See you next time for more on why Dr. Pines kicked a wall for thirty minutes."  
  
****  
  
Ford moaned, staring up at a swath of starry cloth draped high above his head.  He wasn't sure exactly how long ago he'd awoken, laying flat out on his back with his glasses still on but, so far, he'd refused to move.  His limbs burned and his abdomen ached like someone had repeatedly stomped on it, proving to his mixed up mind that, "Damn.  It  _was_ real."  He let out a grunt at the stench of stale sweat and the sensation of, well, he guessed he could start calling it a beard again, scratching his fingertips as he dragged one hand down his left cheek to his chin.  He lifted it, letting out a sigh of relief to find no trace of red.  
  
Shame washed over him as his gaze shifted to the padded wall.  At least Stanley's handiwork seemed to hold up well to the beating he'd given it, though there was a visible misshapen patch where he'd focused a few swift kicks.  He supposed his outburst must have been quite a spectacle - A man in his sixties having a tantrum like a toddler.  He could only hope his eruption hadn't woken Stanley or the kids.  At least no one saw his disgusting display...  Except...  
  
He hissed as his reddened knuckles pressed into the padding below in an effort to lift himself into a seated position.  Grimacing, he leaned against the back wall and peered through the massive smudge on the left lens of his glasses toward the vent above the television.  
  
"Hello?" he questioned, his voice more gravely yet quieter than usual.  "Wax Larry King?"  He couldn't believe he'd said those words aloud.  
  
In the opposite corner beyond the bars, water trickled over the faux rock fountain but no answer came.  "Oh.  Right," he grumbled, surprised at the disappointment in his tone, "Stanley mentioned you only come to life at night..."  His voice trailed off as he wondered if he'd driven him away.  He wouldn't blame him if he  _had_  left though, he hated to admit it but, he really would have appreciated being able to talk to someone who could answer him.  The plants were good listeners but they couldn't offer the type of distracting conversation he sometimes longed for in the hours when Stan couldn't be there.  
  
He sighed, reaching for the nearest pillow and hoping the TV would do for now.  
  
"TV on," he murmured, hugging the pillow to his chest.  With the voice command, at least it was sort of like talking to something that could respond.  
  
Hours passed as he sat, propped against the wall and staring at the news, watching old episodes of cartoons from his childhood, and occasionally channel surfing mindlessly for an hour, all the while pushing any thoughts aside, opting for as much numbness as he could muster.  Finally, he found the strength to stand and the mental fortitude to face the type of thoughts a shower tended to fuel.  
  
Under the warm water, washing up on autopilot, he reasoned with himself.  "My right eye bled on and off for thirty years before going blind.  Does that mean the left will be the same?  Is that a good thing?  Having thirty more years worth of time before...  But will I live thirty more years?  Is it a good or bad thing that I may not survive long enough to lose vision in my other eye?  And what about..." the memory of his most recent hallucination played back in his mind and he could see it as clear as the real thing - the day when he and Stan had hidden away the last of the remaining portal parts in the room behind his cell.  "What will happen to all of that when we...  When he..."  He couldn't finish that thought.  Sure there were times when he'd...  More than considered his own death but Stan's?  "Please don't take him from me..." he begged of any force that might be listening, silently reprimanding himself for wallowing in self-pity last night, for neglecting the fact that he still had his brother.  If there was anything good about his situation at all, it was that he'd had his best friend back at his side for the past thirty years.  
  
"Speaking of Stanley," he thought, attempting to shake off the residual sludge from his dive into distressing thoughts, "he might be down any minute now."  
  
He sped through his final rinse, wrapped a towel around his drenched hair, and dried himself off.  With no fresh change of clothes left in the bathroom, he opted for the blue plaid pajamas he'd failed to change into last night.  Even though he felt less weighed down by sweat and mental fog, the shower hadn't done much to lessen the rawness of his knuckles or the bruised ache in the soles of his feet.  Sure it was simple to hide the bottoms of his feet, but Stan wouldn't miss the state of his hands and...  
  
_How am I...?  I can't tell him...  I can't.  
_  
It was more than not wanting to tell him.  He'd have to face his reaction, face worrying him, find the words to even manage to tell him in the first place.  And then what?  More doctor visits?  More medications?  More surgery?   _UGH!_  How could he tell his brother he'd lost a fight with a wall because...  He couldn't even figure out how to tell himself in anything more than a nebulous concept  _even he_  couldn't grasp as it floated in his mind, looking for something to hide behind, trying to disperse altogether.  
  
He removed the towel from his hair and tossed it over the shower curtain's bar.  Running a hand through his wet curls, he counted out one more round of breathing exercises and used the return of at least some clarity to remind himself that taking his medications was wise no matter what excuses his mind tried to use against him.  With one more deep breath and still no idea of what he'd say to Stanley, he left the steamy scent of soap behind.    
  
As he stepped out, he noticed the grow light flicker off for the night and the plant-filled corner fall into shadow.  Just as the last of the water trickled into the fountain's pool, a yawn sounded from the heating vent.  
  
"You're still here?" Ford asked, a little more enthusiasm to his tone than he intended.  
  
"Did you think a rat might carry me back upstairs during the day?  One tried to haul me away once and only managed to take off my ear.  I mostly melted it back on, though," the voice from the heating vent joked back flatly, "Anyway, I may as well ask you the same thing."  
  
Refusing to admit to any worry that his outburst might have scared the wax head off, Ford opted for a shrug and suggested, "It's possible a gnome might have carried you off.  It wouldn't be the first time one snuck into the house and tried to steal something or uh...  In your case... Someone."  
  
"Fair point.  Well," the wax head switched to a formal tone and continued, "As you can see we're back with Dr. Stanford Pines and possible surprise guest Mr. Bill Cipher.  Dr. Pines, you had a bit of a meltdown last night.  Care to talk about that?"  
  
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," he answered, wincing as he rubbed a knot in his shoulder with his sore arm.  
  
"Alright.  I can assume you're having some amount of turmoil due to the bleeding of your eye," the voice from behind the vent pried in a monotonous tone, "Tell me, are you going to let your brother know what happened?"  
  
Ford sighed, pinching his nose.  "You know..." he said, draping his arms over the horizontal bar between himself and the wax head, resting his forehead between the padded vertical bars, "You're not helping."  
  
"I'm not trying to.  I'm just asking the questions people want answered."  
  
"People?  What people?!" he lifted his head and huffed, gesturing to the otherwise empty room.  "I'm in a basement talking to a severed wax head who, for all I know at this point, may or may not be a figment of my imagination!  How do I know you're not just another hallucination?" he asked, pointing to the head behind the vent.  "How do I know if my eye actually did start bleeding?"  
  
There.  He said it.  Even if it was in somewhat of a state of denial, the words materialized in some form or another...  Followed by a deeper dive into denial.  "Maybe that was a hallucination too!"  
  
"Am I a hallucination?" he pondered, tipping to one side in a mock-thoughtful gesture.  "Hmm, I suppose it's not impossible.  But I feel like I'm real...  Maybe I'm hallucinating that you're here."  
  
"What?" Ford snapped, massaging his forehead and starting to wish for silence again.  
  
"But, we've gotten off topic.  It seems, to me, like its only fair to tell your brother what's happening."  
  
"How can I possibly tell him anything when I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with this myself?" He grumbled, resting his folded arms against the bars and burying his head between them.  "I'm not ready to feel worse because I've troubled someone else with this."  
  
"But wouldn't it be less trouble if he could call for medical help as soon as possible?"  
  
"It would just be troubling Dr. Braum, then," he said with a sigh, shaking his head without bothering to lift it, his damp curls rubbing against his arms.  "Medicine and surgery can't remove the demon from my mind and Stanley has already gone out of his way trying to find answers."  
  
"So that's it, then?  You're going to give up?"  
  
"No," His fist pounded against the bar with his objection, "I just need time to fully think things through first."  
  
"Fair enough," Wax Larry King answered, his partly chewed off ear twitching at the sound of the elevator door rattling open followed by approaching footsteps.  "But," he continued with one eyebrow quirked, "if something like this happened to him and you had the power to at least call a doctor, wouldn't you want him to tell you?"  
  
"I...  Damnit...." he spat, still speaking more to his own arms than the voice in the vent.  At the knock on his door, he looked up and hissed, "Alright, fine." before raising his voice to answer, "Come in."  
  
The door eased open and Stan stepped into the amber light, clad in a gray striped swimsuit with the misprinted Mister Y Hack tote bag bulging under his right arm.  "Hey.  How're you holding up?" he asked, digging in the tote for a set of clean clothes and the next day's medications for Ford.  
  
"A-alright," Ford answered, keeping his marred knuckles turned away from Stan's view as he reached for the pile being pushed through the bars to him.  "Why are you wearing that?" he added, turning toward the bathroom.  
  
As Stan set the tote down and knelt beside it to rummage for Ford's dinner, he explained, "Oh ha!  I'm gonna head out to the pool in a bit.  Gideon was already in my chair when we got there yesterday so I'm gonna break in tonight and make sure he can't get to it before I do!"  
  
Ford peeked out from the bathroom door to ask, "What about the kids?"  
  
"Well, that Poolcheck guy's got Dipper working the night shift," Stan grumbled, watching Ford approach with an empty daily dose container and a pile of laundry, including the dreaded scarlet sweater he'd probably have to soak in vinegar all night to get the smell out of it.  
  
"What?!  Why?"  Ford said, nearly dropping the pile as he pushed it through to Stan, less because of the unsavory information and more because of still trying to keep his hands out of sight.  
  
Reaching for the pile, Stan explained  "I dunno.  Something about someone breaking the skimmer last night.  I mean, seriously?  Who lets a twelve year old look after a public pool all night?!" he ranted, shoving the dirty laundry into a plastic bag and tying its top.  "I tried to tell him he shouldn't do it and that he needed to just quit that job but he wants to impress Wendy and...  Well I couldn't say no."  
  
Ford gave him a smile that said "you big softie", eliciting a nervous chuckle from him.  
  
His eyes drifted back down to the soda can and plastic bag he'd pulled from the tote.  He cracked open the soda can and poured it into a paper cup as he continued, "As for Mabel, I caught her coming home in her bathing suit last night after I went back upstairs but she saw me hanging around in the gift shop in the middle of the night so we kinda agreed not to ask each other any questions.  Gotta say I'm pretty proud of her, even if it was me she was blackmailing."  He passed the cup through to Ford and fidgeted with the bag, pulling out a roast beef sandwich.  "But, my guess is she snuck out to the pool last night to hang out with that guy she met and she's probably going to do it again tonight.  So...  I'm gonna go fry three eggs in one pan or something like that."  
  
"Well," Ford said, reaching for the sandwich so the back of his hand was pressed against one of the bars, "You'd better get going then.  No need to stick around here."  
  
"Yeah?" Stan asked, the suspicion in his tone accented by his raised eyebrow, "You sure you're alright?"  
  
"Yes, you should go make sure the kids are," he said, taking a seat in the beanbag in front of the TV.  
  
"Okay," he said with a shrug, bending to lift the tote.  He swung it over his shoulder and, as he turned to leave, Ford lifted his sandwich to take a bite.  Stan swiveled back with an, "Oh yeah!" just in time to see the raw redness of his knuckles before he dropped them back to his lap, nearly tearing the meat out from between the slices of bread in his haste.   _Great,_  he thought.   _Going to have to pry some answers out of him about that one.  Welp.  Here we go._  "Uh," he said, eyeing Ford's nervous grin, "I called Dr. Braum today and she said she'd look into an experimental prescription for you.  Have you had any more um...  Wombats?"  
  
"I..." Ford answered, swallowing the lump of somewhat dry sandwich after too little chewing, his fingers fidgeting around the remainder of it held low in his lap.  "Yes, just one after you left last night."  
  
"Wanna tell me about it or...?"  
  
He turned and nodded toward the back wall, his answer blurting out faster than he intended, "I saw the rest of the basement...  The storage space..."  
  
"Oh?  Do you think I need to open up the wall and see if everything's alright back there?" Stan asked, wrapping a hand around the bars and leaning forward to get a closer look at his brother.   
  
"I...  I don't know.  I...  Stanley..." he said, looking up to him, his hands still clutching the sandwich in his lap, "What's going to happen to all of that when you and I...  Aren't here anymore."  
  
"Oh, Is that what's got you so twitchy?" he wondered aloud.  Maybe whatever had happened to his hands wasn't the real issue here after all.  Either way, he'd still find the right moment to ask about it.  For now, he figured he'd try to set his brother's mind at ease, at least a little.  "Well, I mentioned that stuff in the instructions I left for Soos for if anything happens to me.  I think he'd make sure no one got their hands on it."  
  
"And what about after that?  This is a huge uh...  Sea otter to place on anyone," Ford chuckled awkwardly, hoping his attempt at humor would mask the nervous twinge in his voice.  
  
"Ha ha, we'll have to do more tatting to see what we can do with that stuff," Stan said, returning Ford's joke but raising an eyebrow at his slight stutter.  "Maybe that guy who fixed up that TV for us can use it for something.  I guess we'll open up the wall and figure things out when the kids go back home.  Seriously, though...  I guess we did mean to try and do something with all that but just...  Never got to it, huh?  Probably explains you hallucinating about it."  
  
"I suppose it could have been subconsciously bothering me..." he answered, shrugging as if to dismiss the topic.  
  
"Yeah could be," Stan said, mirroring his shrug.  "So," he added, pointing to Ford's semi-hidden hands, "You gonna tell me, what's up with your knuckles?  Did Bill?"  
  
"No!  That is...  Well..."   _Damn it what does he have, the eyes of an elf?_   Ford thought, scrambling to fabricate an explanation.  "I got a little carried away with a workout," he said, settling on a half-truth with a chuckle.  "It...  Felt good to pick a fight with the wall for a bit."  He wagged his thumb at the dent he'd worn into the padded wall.  "Sorry about the damage."  
  
"Ooooh.  Right," Stan answered in a low, understanding tone.  "So, who won?"  
  
"I would have to say the wall did," Ford said, lifting his hands to finally show Stan.  
  
"Yeesh.  Well, I gotta say, I get a little carried away with the punching bag sometimes and it's probably a good thing I got boxing gloves for that," he said, rubbing the back of his neck and shifting the strap of the tote bag on his shoulder.  "Uh, there anything you wanna to talk about or just letting off some steam?"  
  
"Just letting off steam," he answered, finally settling into a steadier tone somewhere within the comfort of finding a believable lie,  "I hope it didn't wake you or the kids."  
  
"Pffft!"  Stan's sputter escalated to a hearty laugh.  
  
"What?  What is it?"  
  
"Dipper mentioned he thought he was feeling tremors last night.  I can't believe it was you beating up a wall down here the whole time!"  
  
****  
  
From inside the vent a scornful voice tsked and chided Ford, "You didn't tell him..."    
  
"Of course I didn't.  How could I have?" he snorted, stuffing a bite of his sandwich into his mouth.  He swallowed hard and rambled, "You heard him.  He needed to go.  Who gives a twelve year old kid the night shift at the pool?  I know Dipper wants to impress Wendy but how is it legal for him to even have that job?  What did he do, lie about his age?  Stan's right.  He needs to be there to keep an eye on things.  Especially if he thinks Mabel is sneaking out there too.  And if it also means he gets to reserve his chair for tomorrow, then good."  
  
"Hmm.  How sweet," he quipped, his words saturated in sarcasm, "Hiding behind a pretense of caring about the kids' safety over your health..."  
  
"That's not-!"  Ford could see the raised eyebrow between the vent's slats. He heaved a sigh and added, "I really do care about them.  I want them to be safe and happy...  And for Stanley to enjoy some time with them," he explained, staring down at the remaining quarter of a sandwich in his hand.  "But..."  
  
"You're jealous."  
  
"If only it was that simple.  Not that I'm denying it," he sighed, leaning back into the bean bag.  "But, as much as I try not to be...  I can't make it any less true that I want what Stanley has, the bond he's building with the kids and the family.  Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want him to have it," he blurted.  "He needs this.  He deserves to have family around who cares for him."  
  
"And you don't?"  
  
His head lowered as he stared at his arm, his eye settling on the scarred letters Bill carved into it decades ago.  "Stanley has given up so much to help me, even though it's my own fault I'm stuck here.   _I_  summoned Bill.   _I_  made that deal with him.   _I_  built that...  Wait...", his eye widened and his lips lifted, a small spark of triumph igniting in his chest as an idea hit him.  "Ha ha ha...."  
  
"Why are you laughing?  What's funny?"  
  
"You!  Well, not that you're funny- I mean!" he lifted his hands, the fraction of a sandwich still clutched between his fingers, as he tried to explain, "Not that I'm trying to ridicule you.  Maybe it's more like this situation.  I had that hallucination last night and the fates delivered someone in exactly the right state of existence to help ease my mind."  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Yes!  You can check on something for me!  You heard what I told Stanley, right?  How I had a hallucination of the back portion of this room?  Well, we never sealed off the vent leading to it.  Can you get through it to see if it looks like anyone's broken into it or tampered with anything back there?  See if there are still boxes piled up and, well, machine parts that look like they came from a space ship."  
  
"I can but only if you'll grant me an exclusive interview about whatever it is that's back there."  
  
"I...  Alright I will, but later."  
  
Wax Larry King almost uttered the word "deal" but thought better of it, swapping it out for a plain affirmation, "Alright."  
  
Ford listened as the wax head clomped through the duct until the sound faded somewhere behind him.  In the momentary silence, he finished his sandwich and reached through the bars for his cup of soda, downing half of it in one swig.  He placed it back on the floor beyond the bars and leaned back closing his eye and running through breathing exercises to calm the thumping of his heart against his ribs.  Less than fifteen minutes passed before the clomping drew closer again, accompanied by the odd cough.  
  
Ford sat up, focusing on the vent until he could see the gleam of glasses between the slats.  "Any luck?" he asked.   
  
"It's dark in there," the wax head answered, "but it's so dusty that I'd say no one has been back there in a few decades."  
  
"Thirty years?"  
  
"Oddly specific but sure, that sounds about right.  Anyway, it's just like you said, piled boxes and machine parts that look stranger than I was imagining."  
  
"Good...  Good.  It's all still there and still safe," he said, letting out a slow sigh of relief.  
  
"What exactly is all of that and what was it for...  Or from?"  
  
"A mistake," Ford explained, leaning forward and draping his arms over his knees.  "I built a machine in my youth meant to bring knowledge to the world but things went terribly wrong so Stanley and I dismantled it.  We hid the parts we could not fully disassemble or safely destroy back there so they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands."  
  
"The wrong hands?"  
  
"Bill's.  He made me believe I was the only one who could build such a device..."  His voice trailed off before he could add that it was less about his ability and more about his gullibility.  He wasn't the first human Bill had approached and he knew Bill was already interested in, as he called them, "new pawns".  Given that at least one primitive portal models created by a former pawn almost functioned, he knew the alien parts were a primary reason his version saw as much as an unstable success.  That and the brilliant engineering skills of-  
  
_Wait.  
  
FID-!_  
  
As soon as the name flashed in his mind, Ford clutched his head, Bill's presence tugging at his own.  
  
"No, please!  I finally remem-!"  He tried to shout out the name, cursed himself because it wasn't the first word he'd thought to blurt out, because he'd failed to consider there were other ears in the room, someone who could have reminded him, but it was too late.  Before the first letter emerged, his consciousness was torn from his body and thrown to the depths of his own mind.  
  
"Remember?  Remembered what?" The wax head asked, watching as Ford's body slumped forward.  "Dr. Pines?"  
  
"Stanford's away from his body at the moment," Bill announced, lifting Ford's body from the beanbag and gripping the bars.  "Leave a message...  Or don't.  Either way, I probably won't give it to him."  
  
"Ah, Mr. Cipher, am I right?"  
  
"The one and only but I'd prefer it if you called me your lord and master," he suggested, tipping Ford's chin up smugly.  
  
"I'd...  Rather not."  
  
"Well aren't you just a chuckle keg.  Maybe Ford was right about you not being funny.  Oh well.  You'll be calling me that soon whether you like it or not," he crooned pressing Ford's face against the bars so one yellow eye glowed between them, a drop of blood welling in its corner.  "Maybe my plans are taking a few centuries longer than anticipated but it'll come together one way or another.  After all, what's a few thousand years to an immortal being?  Anyway, I got some things to take care of in this nerd's head and I don't feel like sticking around any longer than I need to.  Later!"  
  
Ford's body slumped to the floor, his face pressed awkwardly against the bars as if he'd passed out.  
  
****  
  
Bill's ethereal form flickered into Ford's mindscape.  He cursed at having to find some way of hiding memories of Ford's once best friend yet again.  Last time, rather than hiding them behind memories of leprecorns or inside the box labeled "hawktopus incident", he burned them to ash.  Too bad ash meant some shred of them still existed in Ford's mind.  Some memories were rather like invasive weeds, he thought.  Their roots reached far and their seeds could sprout in unexpected places.  Some, as he'd discovered about Ford's memories of Stan, himself, and the portal, grew as tall as the redwoods towering over his home and were rooted so deeply that he'd have to annihilate everything to tear them down.  Sometimes he wondered if he was capable of it.  He'd done deep damage to countless minds in the past but he'd never outright wiped one clean.  He'd never thought it was worth the effort.  After all, he'd only destroy an entire mind if he didn't need anything from the human attached to it anymore and, at that point, it was easier and more amusing to just throw their body into a canyon or turn their allies against them.  
  
For a moment, he considered trying to wipe it out, if only to prove to himself that he could.  But no.  Not yet.  His other endeavors had either seen little success yet or were too early in development to tell if they would lead anywhere useful.  Besides, if his preferred plan happened to pan out, Ford's continued survival would speed things along nicely.  All he needed was for Gideon to take him up on his deal, claim ownership of the shack, and set Ford free.  
  
"The kid might still crack.  If he doesn't, maybe I can at least get that journal from him," he thought, a vision of the second journal, clutched between the child's hands, flashing in his eye.  "Two out of three would speed things along," he continued, the image in his eye shifting to a vision of Ford, thirty years younger, releasing his first journal into the depths of the nightmare realm in favor of grabbing the rope Stan had thrown to him and of Bill's own hands grasping the discarded volume.  "It would at least give the other meat bag a head start," he added, his eye displaying an image of a red and black tapestry depicting the buried bones of the dead while survivors, surrounded by chaos and flames, bowed below him.  
  
With that in mind, he huffed a sigh and got to work.  
  
Ignoring the bookcases and piles of boxes on the study's floor, he floated straight to the focal point of the mindscape, the place where thoughts were laid out as Ford focused upon them - the roll top desk.  In the warm light from a lamp clipped to shelf above the desk, tiny specks flickered into existence and fused together with flakes of ash that seemed to drift forth from every pile, bookcase, and box.  As if watching time reverse itself, their color and form returned, reassembling into a series of books, bound in leather with gilded pages, and a tattered photo box patterned in machine parts, banjos, pig silhouettes, and eyeglasses.  Papers and photos filled it past its brim until the lid tipped to one side on its top.  
  
Several books and boxes on the shelves labeled college, hopes, colleagues, and friends glowed and grew in size as even more ash filed into place within them.  
  
"Damn," Bill muttered, realizing Ford had recalled far more than usual this time.  He lifted his hand to levitate the set of books and overflowing box from the desk, assuring not even a tiny scrap escaped it.  "What shall I do with you this time?" he asked himself, his eye scanning the room for a means of hiding or disposing of the regenerated memories.  
  
He couldn't help snorting a laugh as he noticed the door once labeled "It's gone" had been relabeled "Not again" and whatever was inside had busted out through the splintered hole that had left it hanging from one hinge.  As he wondered if hiding anything in there might be of any use, an ache filled his head, far too familiar and pressing against it from the inside out as if his mind was a balloon someone was filling with too much air.  
  
"You have got to be kidding me!"  
  
****  
  
Ford found himself, or rather, a ghostly presence of his consciousness he could neither see nor feel, banished to the deepest depths of his own mind once again with no window to the outside world, unable to hear so much as a single sound no matter how much he strained.  
  
Yet, somehow there was light.  Anytime he'd lost contact with the outside world before, he'd found himself in a sensationless void but this time, above his head, a pinhole appeared, flickering like a candle's flame.  He moved toward it with every ounce of energy within him and as it drew closer, its edges seemed to burn away like paper set aflame until he easily drifted through...  
  
And immediately wished he hadn't.    
  
He floated above a world set aflame, smoke billowing up around him.  The smell should have choked him and somewhere deep within himself, he gagged on it, his heart aching at the screams etching themselves into his mind.  But outwardly, a laugh rumbled up from his gut, echoing in his ears as if it came from his own mouth.  Except...  He could have sworn he didn't have one.  Unbridled joy washed over him, a sense of triumph, of vengeance wrought, and of pure power surged through him and with every plume of flame, every crackle and crash of a building succumbing to the inferno, delight dominated his mind, tingling in every limb.  
  
With a final roar of nasaly laughter, the world around him shifted.  Swirling stars spattered the darkness surrounding him as he floated between asteroids, checking every crater and cranny of each one, and growling when he found them empty.  
  
"Find anything yet, guys?" he asked, shouting through a floating band of baskets, shoes, teapots, and other debris.  
  
"Nothing yet."  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Uh-uh."  
  
The answers came from familiar faces, monsters he'd seen grinning at him, their eyes glowing, teeth gnashing, and claws snapping as he grabbed a rope and pulled himself through a swirling vortex of rainbow light, back into his own dimension.  At the time, he'd trembled with fear but, this time, the creatures did, as if  _they_ feared _him_.  As for himself, he lacked any fright or even respect for the creatures, almost as if they were nothing more to him than...  Pawns.  
  
With a huffed, "You're useless.  Do I have to do everything myself?" he checked one more cavern.  
  
"No no no this is wrong," his mind screamed despite the swell of satisfaction lifting the corner of his eye as if smiling.  
  
Huddled in the cave were creatures with pig-like faces and tentacles rather than arms.  Refugees.  He didn't know how he knew it and worse, couldn't understand his seething grudge against these gentle looking creature nor his excitement as he snapped his fingers, disintegrating the entire asteroid and everything within.  
  
****  
  
"Oh no.  No you don't!" Bill shouted, shaking himself back and forth, one fist pounding against his angled side just below his top hat, the other struggling to maintain levitation of several books and the overfilled box.  He clenched his eye shut for a moment then reopened it, scanned the room again, searching frantically for someplace to hide the memories that could ruin everything he'd worked for. He'd already seen what a Fiddleford who hadn't forgotten himself was capable of in another dimension, he didn't need this one building contraptions with powers that rivaled his own.  No.  He couldn't let Ford remember.  "The sentimental old fool will want to see him, remind him of who he used to be and that self-righteous duo could ruin everythin- OW!"  
  
His head throbbed and his body flickered red as he spat, "Hell no.  Hell.  Fucking.  NO!  Argh!  Gotta get out of here!  Where can I hide your dumb memories!" he rambled, his gaze darting to every corner of the room.  
  
"There!"  His eye grew wide as he spotted a piled mess flanked on either side by a nearly empty bookcase, casting it in darkness aside from the odd flicker of light from a bulb set into the ceiling above.  It appeared as if an earthquake had shaken the contents from the shelves and only a few books and bottles had been sorted out and reshelved over the past few decades.  Scraps of crumpled paper were squished between boxes dumped over, awards and trophies spilling out, and half-filled journals with most of the text stroked through, many of them labeled with "identity", others scribbled over in red and relabeled "Who am I?", and even more titled "aspirations" and "accomplishments?".  
  
He waved his free hand, shifting the pile until a hole opened in its center and...  
  
Everything, the book and photo box as well as the levitating papers and journals fell to the floor as he clutched his sides near the top point of his body with a frustrated "OW!"  
  
"Arrrgh!" with a scream he sent the book, box, and all of its scattered contents flying into the pile and covering it over.  He floated past bookshelves, pulling out the volumes he knew contained connected memories and tearing out the pages, disintegrating them with a flick of his wrist as the ache in his mind pulsed and panged.  
  
"Get out!" he roared, tearing through a box and incinerating photos and notes, sending a laptop flying into the neglected pile, and crushing a metal box with a button on top that supposedly made a tree somewhere back at BUM University snort like a pig.  
  
"You.  Stupid.  Nerd!"  
  
****  
  
In the seemingly endless expanse of space, surrounded by familiar constellations, Ford looked down upon the earth.  Somewhere in his core, he wanted to scream in horror but laughter eclipsed it, ringing out from nearly his entire being.  Anticipation, a little like what he'd felt when building the portal in his youth but amplified as if he'd waited centuries for this moment, wanted it for thousands of years filled him to the brim until he felt as if he'd burst.  Somehow he knew what he was seeing hadn't happened yet, that the flames and craters below were no more than plans and dreams, that he was simply imagining how salty the earth would taste as he took a bite out of its side.  
  
"This isn't me.  It can't be!  These aren't my thoughts!"  
  
****  
  
Finally certain he'd found the last of Ford's memories of Fiddleford, Bill squinted through the pressure inside his mind, looking back toward the desk and the shelf above it.  Sure enough, that pesky, seemingly indestructible memory still sat there in the form of a freshly bound leather book, growing wider and wider with each passing moment.  The corners of the label pasted to its spine, scribbled with the word "hallucinations", peeled up before his eyes.  He lifted his hand, levitating the book to him and reaching out for it, pressing the labels back down only to have them peel back up and off, as if they willingly jumped from the surface.  
  
With a growl that esculated to a roar, he set the book ablaze but could only watch as it regenerated in it's place on the shelf above the desk.  
  
"Shit.  Shit shit shit shit!  Enjoy this in the morning, Brainiac!" he shouted aloud, lifting Ford's arm to his mouth, scrunching his sleeve up his arm and sinking what remained of his teeth in beside the scarred words, "Bill was here".  
  
****  
  
Ford's surroundings swirled and morphed again and he found himself in...  
  
"My mindscape?  Does that mean Bill left?"  
  
But something wasn't right.  He'd been angry at himself before but it was rather like a steady hum of electricity confined to a series of conduits, arcing every so often toward Bill or his situation if they happened to break down.  This was wild, more like the raging inferno he'd witnessed mere moments ago.  
  
He squinted through a pressure inside his head, turning to look at the roll top desk and the shelf above.  His anger...  Or not his but someone else's? boiled as he spotted a book bound in shining leather with a paper label covering the title on its spine, relabeling it as "hallucinations".  He nearly shouted out loud as he saw the spine expand, the label's corners peeling up.  He lifted his hand and the book levitated toward him like he somehow expected it to.  Or someone else did.  He pressed down the label he'd written himself...  Or someone else had written, hoping to continue his...  Their? deception for even a little longer.  Instead, the label peeled up as if repelled from the surface and, in an instant, it felt as if he'd known all along what was hiding underneath while deep inside, he simultaneously  wanted to shout a triumphant ah-ha at the discovery.  
  
In his hands he held a new memory, one labeled in a jagged, golden font with the words, "Bill's mind."  
  
Like it or not, he growled audibly until rage spewed out, not inward into his mindscape but outward, through his own mouth and from his own body in his basement cell.  "Shit.  Shit shit shit shit!  Enjoy this in the morning, Brainiac!"  
  
He looked down seeing his own arm with the words "Bill was here" scrawled in discolored scars.  He lowered his head, baring his teeth, and with a malevolent, destructive sort of glee, he bit down as hard as he could.  Pain shot up through his arm but rather than cry out, he laughed, the sensation, though as sharp and unpleasant as he knew it to be, was welcome within a seemingly endless and sensationless existence.  He smiled wide, satisfied with the damage he'd done and fled the scene before Ford...  before he, himself? had the chance to see anything more.    
  
The world went dark and silent as if he'd fallen asleep.  
  
****  
  
"Dr. Pines?"  
  
The voice garbled through Ford's ears, reverberating through his aching head.  A groan grated through his throat as he lifted his forehead away from the bars, blinking in the amber light from beyond them.  Despite their padding, they'd left a stripe of reddened flesh on either side of his face.  He smoothed back his hair and cracked his stiffened shoulders as he sat back, cross legged on the floor.  
  
"Dr. Pines, it appears your eye has been bleeding again," said the voice in the vent.  
  
Somewhat dazed, he lifted his hand to his eye, his glasses pushing up against his forehead as he wiped a sticky stream from below his bottom lid.  He lowered his hand, eye focusing on the red smear.  "Heh..." he breathed, his lips curling up as his laugh grew in volume, his chest shaking with the sound.  
  
"Um.  Dr. Pines?  Are you alright?" the wax head asked, edging deeper into the vent.  
  
"I'm not having hallucinations," Ford answered, his smile widening in relief and his cadence almost excited, "I'm seeing inside Bill's mind!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbii. Pefq.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Past codes decoded here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)


	26. Breaking and Entering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan finally gets some sleep except it's exactly when he didn't want to, Gideon takes advantage of an empty Mystery Shack, Ford's experiences in the mindscape catch up with him, and the Pines brothers spend some quality arts and crafts time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Thanks to [ Bill-beauxquais ](http://bill-beauxquais.tumblr.com/) and [ zonerobotnik ](http://zonerobotnik.tumblr.com/) for listening to my ramblings about this!
> 
> ~ ~~Last chance for the ending poll! I'm going to leave it open for one more week just because I'm running a bit late with updates. The new closing date will be August 11 at 11:59pm EST.~~ (Poll ended, thanks to everyone who voted!)
> 
> ~This chapter jumps back in time a bit for the sake of showing what Stan, Mabel, and Gideon were all up to while Ford was busy in Bill's mind. It loops back to the end of the last chapter about mid-way through and moves forward from there.
> 
> ~Oops... Stan was wearing his suit when he broke into the pool in canon so we'll just call him wearing his swimsuit in this fic a small canon divergence. We'll call the altered the layout of his office one, too.
> 
> ~Thanks to everyone for sticking with me during these past few chapters of setting things up. Canon divergence is going to start showing up more and more until it finally splits off in its own path in the next few chapters (I feel like I promised that a while ago but didn't realize how much still needed to be set up/addressed. Sorry!) 
> 
> ~Please excuse my terrible Harry Potter reference.
> 
> ~Yeah, I'm a loser and referenced a display in the museum that I made up for my Maybe it's Not Too Late fic.
> 
> ~That title is a dumb metaphor for Ford breaking into Bill's mind just as much as what Gideon is up to...

"Doop-de-doo, going to the pool," Stan hummed to himself in time with the whir of the elevator as it lifted him back to up to the stairwell behind the vending machine.  "Sheesh," he grumbled to himself, the image of Ford's reddened knuckles and the dent in the wall's padding lingering in his mind.  "I thought Ford said he was gonna take it easy on those workouts.  Ah well.  Probably good that he's staying in shape, even if he does go a bit overboard sometimes.  Can't say I've never needed to replace a punching bag..."   
  
Hunched over, he scratched at his bottom through his gray striped swimsuit and yawned as the door rattled open.  Lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him again.   _Oh well.  If I get my chair tonight, all I gotta do is stay up long enough to make sure the kids don't get into any trouble then I can sleep pretty much all day tomorrow,_  he thought.  
  
Once back upstairs, he glanced around, assuring he was alone, and made his way into the living room, lit solely by the blue glow of the aquarium, and tapped on one of the stones in the wall in a Morse code rhythm that spelled the word "treasure".  With a poof of pungency that lingered in his throat, the stone swung out, revealing a compartment overflowing with exactly what one might expect from the pass code.  From top to bottom and bulging out at the opening were bags stuffed with dirty laundry.  "Ugh, I gotta get some of this taken care of.  He's gonna run out of underwear in a few days if I don't.  That smell's starting to seep into the living room, too," he grumbled, fanning the air in front of his nose as he crammed the newest bag full in and pushed the door closed again.  
  
Before it clicked shut, the staircase in the hallway creaked.  He craned his neck, taking a step away to find Mabel sneaking toward the door except, tonight, instead of her bathing suit, she was wearing a blue sweater with a seahorse appliqued onto it.  "Shit," he thought, "I figured for sure she'd be going to the pool tonight..."    
  
The floor creaked below his foot as he took another step and said in a husky whisper, "Mabel?"  
  
She whipped around, rubbing the back of her head as she stuttered, "Oh uh...  G-grunkle Stan.  Nice evening for uh...  walking around the shack in the dark, isn't it?"  
  
With a flat expression, he answered, "We gotta stop meeting like this."  
  
She stepped down into the living room, her face contorted and her hand covering her nose.  "Ugh," she said, her voice distorted by the fingers pinching her nose, "what's that smell?"  
  
"Uh..." Stan leaned against the stone door as nonchalantly as he could, blurting out the only lie of an explanation that came to mind in hopes it would mask the click of the door latching closed, "Heh...  shoulda known not to make baked beans with dinner..."  
  
"Ha ha.  One more reason to be glad Dipper had to work tonight or uh...  It might smell like that in our room," she answered with a nervous laugh, wringing her hair between her hands.  "Aaaanyway...  Soooo  Same deal as before?  I don't ask you any questions, you don't ask me?"  
  
"Problem with that is I ain't got nothin to not tell tonight," Stan said with a shrug.  "I'm heading back to the pool to claim my spot for tomorrow.  And maybe keep an eye on your brother...  You uh..." he paused, still unsure if the lack of a bathing suit meant she wasn't going to the pool after all.  He placed a hand on her shoulder, figuring he'd ask anyway, "Wanna come with me?"  
  
"Hmm," she pondered, tapping her chin.  "So you're going to break into the pool and claim your spot, probably distracting Dipper in the process?"  
  
"Pretty much, yeah."  
  
"Perfect.  Can I drive us there in the golf cart?  Because reasons?"  
  
"Ha ha, well, it might be nice to take it out for a spin.  Yeah, sure.  Why not?  On one condition, though," he added, with flattened brows, in the most parent-like tone he could muster, "You tell me all about those 'reasons' on the way."  
  
  
****  
  
  
"He's a what, now?" Stan said with a hearty chuckle.  
  
"A merman.  A merman named Mermando.  And I'm going to borrow that big cooler-y thingy they use at the snack bar, stick it on the golf cart, fill it with water, and use it to get him to the lake so he can get back home to his family."  
  
"Ha ha, you kids and your imaginations."  
  
"Grunkle Stan, It's the truth.  He really is a merman and-"  
  
"Whoa, Mabel," Stan shouted, bracing himself as Mabel nearly drove off the side of the road.   "Watch where you're driving.  Look," he explained, placing his hand on her back as she corrected her course.  "It's alright.  Our deal still stands if you want it to.  You don't gotta tell me everything.  I'm just," he sighed, pinching his nose, "I don't want you gettin yourself into any trouble is all but I can tell you really are trying to help your friend, boyfriend...  Whatever.  Anyway, you're a good kid and I trust you to do whatever you gotta do to help him as long as you remember to keep yourself safe, alright?"  
  
"Alright.  Grunkle Stan?  I trust you to do whatever you're doing to get better, too..." she said, losing focus on the public pool sign ahead and coasting to a near stop.  "I heard you make a therapist appointment.  But I didn't tell anyone.  Not even Dipper," she blurted, the cart jerking forward as she picked up speed again.  
  
"Oh you uh...  heard that, did you?" Stan stuttered, his chest tightening as he wondered exactly how much she'd heard.  
  
"It's alright," she said, missing the pool's parking lot completely and turning into a clearing in the woods instead.  "I'm glad you're getting help for whatever's going on.  But talk to me if you ever need to, okay?"  
  
From that, Stan figured she must not have heard too much.  He let out a slow breath, and uttered, "Alright," despite the tightness in his chest maintaining a vice-like grip on his heart and lungs.  
  
  
****  
  
  
Bud leaned back in the driver's seat of the 1989 Slihpwagon a customer had traded in that morning.  Normally he wouldn't have accepted, let alone allowed himself to be seen in anything that looked as though an over-caffeinated octopus had spray painted a camouflage pattern on it but, Gideon had a fair point.  While it may have been an eyesore on the road, it blended into the undergrowth bordering the public pool pretty well.  If Gideon could get his hands on the Mystery Shack's deed with all these shenanigans, he supposed it would be worth the $500 credit he gave that guy for this amalgamation of ailing auto parts.  
  
Gideon liked the situation even less.  The smell of decaying vinyl, headliner glue, and old cigarettes had him holding a tissue drenched in Eau de Enchantment over his nose while practically sticking his head out the open window - a window he had to physically crank open, of all things.  Even worse, sweat was beading up on his forehead and his foundation was starting to feel sticky.   _It'll all be worth it when the shack is mine,_  he thought to himself, peering through a pair of binoculars at the pool's fence, watching Dipper pace back and forth and scanning the area for any sign of the other Pines.   _Come on old man.  Show up, already.  I better not have gotten glue on my nails for nothing!  And where is my perfect peach, Mabel?_   Maybe he was imagining things when he saw that boy she was talking to reveal his bottom half to be a fish tail.  Maybe it was wishful thinking when he thought he overheard Mabel mention she wanted to set him free...  
  
_It would be so like her, though.  Beautiful, selfless Mabel wanting to set a merman free rather than keep him all to herself...  Wait!_  
  
Bud nodded off as Gideon leaned further out the window, listening past the rustle of pine needles for the sound of tires grinding against gravel, snapping twigs every so often.  It grew louder, accompanied by the hum of a motor until it rumbled past their car, stopping somewhere near the pool fence.  
  
"Ugh, I'm going to get callouses doing this!" Gideon griped as he climbed through the window, annoyed that the interior lights were one of the few things that still functioned in that garbage fire of a car.  The last thing he needed, though, was for any of the Pines to see a light in the woods.  At least the sputtering of a motor starting could reasonably be mistaken as a ruckus from the Night Owl Market across the street.    
  
He crept through the bushes, dodging twigs and grimacing as leaves brushed against his hair.  Finally, he pushed aside one last tuft of grass to find the Mystery Shack's golf cart idling in a clearing behind the pool's restrooms with Mabel in the driver's seat.  
  
"Keep her running here for a minute, Pumpkin.  I'll go find us a way in" Stan said, lifting a pair of bolt cutters and giving them a squeeze, as if threatening an invisible foe.  "I'll distract Dipper and you can take it from there, right?"  
  
"Thanks Grunkle Stan.  And thanks for understanding," Mabel answered, giving her grunkle a smile that made Gideon's heart swell.  It wasn't quite the adoring smile he wished she'd give him but still, he'd take the a friendly, grateful one over the scowls she'd shot at him the last time they met.  
  
"No problem, kiddo.  Not every day you meet a merman, right?" Stan said, climbing out of the golf cart with an oof.  "You sure you'll be alright getting him to the lake on your own?"  
  
"Yeah, I'll be fine.  This plan is flawless!"  
  
Gideon cringed at the absolute sappiness of their discussion as Stan leaned over to ruffle her hair and said, "That's my girl."  
  
He huffed a sigh and watched as Stan gave her a thumbs up, turned, and tip-toed toward the fence, waiting for Dipper and his flashlight to pass by before setting to work.  He snipped away at the chain link fence, cutting a hole large enough for him to easily walk through with space to spare.  
  
Dipper paced nearby, oblivious to his grunkle's near-silent snipping, and muttered to himself, "Alright, Dipper, here's the plan. Catch the trespasser, protect the supplies, keep job at pool, and eventually marry Wendy."  A ka-chink snapped him out of his mumbled musings and he turned on his heels, the beam of his flashlight glinting off a section of chain link fence as it fell to the ground with a tinny clatter.     
  
Stan had struggled with the last cut, the loose section of fence rattling against the remainder enough to catch Dipper's attention.  Gideon couldn't tell, though, whether this was what Stan had meant by distracting Dipper or not but, either way, distracted was what he got.  
  
"Freeze!" Dipper said in his most threatening squeak, his sight focusing on the stiffened figure of his grunkle.  "Grunkle Stan?" he questioned as if he both couldn't believe it and, simultaneously, wouldn't have expected it to be anyone else.   
  
"I-uh, I'm sleep walking! Also now I'm sleep talking. Nice hat, by the way," Stan rambled, pointing at Dipper's night patrol cap.  
  
"You!" Dipper accused, his fists clenched at his sides, "You're the one destroying pool supplies!"  
  
"What? No! My crime is a lot better than that. I'm gonna get that seat and be ready in the morning when Gideon comes.  And maybe I'll destroy some pool supplies. Night's still young," Stan added with a shrug.  
  
Gideon clasped his hand against his mouth to prevent an audible cheer.  "Good luck doing anything else after you get into that chair," he snickered to himself.    
  
He couldn't help but laugh as Dipper's cheeks reddened and puffed out with a blow of his whistle.  He watched as his nemesis pursued his other nemesis around the pool, leaving an opening for Mabel to back the golf cart through the hole in the fence.  Sure enough, she set to using a public pool cooler as a way of rescuing that...  Admittedly captivating merman.  He nearly chewed on his perfectly manicured nails as Dipper heard her and shone the beam of his flashlight toward her.  Huffing for breath after losing sight of Stan, he rushed over and asked indignantly, "Is everyone was breaking into the pool tonight?"  
  
By the looks of their gopher-like handyman climbing over the fence, maybe the Pines boy had a point.  For a moment Gideon wondered if Toby was somewhere behind him pretending a pine cone was a microphone or if Tyler would pop out of the pool jail and tell Dipper to "git 'em."  Oh well.   _More convenient for me if they're all here,_ Gideon thought.  He waited a few more moments after Dipper sped off in the pool's utility vehicle, chasing Mabel and the merman toward the lake and shouting something about stolen pool supplies.  He peered through his binoculars toward the restrooms, swearing he saw Stan duck into one of them when Dipper was pursuing him.  
  
He nearly cackled out loud as Stan stepped out of the ladies room and fell right into his trap.  He couldn't believe his luck when, instead of instantly realizing he'd fallen into a trap, the old conman leaned back and let out a cacophonous snore.  
  
"This looks, or should I say sounds, like my cue to start phase two of my plan," he snickered, backing away from his hiding spot and the raccoon that had snuggled in beside him at some point.  He shuddered, repeating "gross gross gross" under his breath as he crawled back through the bushes toward their camouflaged car.  With no vigilant eyes watching, he flung the door open and climbed inside, settling in on a sheet he'd thrown over lord knows what those stains on the seat were, and reached for the package of sanitizing wipes in the space where a glove compartment used to be.  
  
"Father," he said, pulling several wipes from the plastic package, only to receive a light snore in response.  "Father!" he repeated, elbowing his arm until he snorted awake.  
  
"Half off discount cars today only!" he blurted, jerking awake and hammering one hand against the car's, luckily nonfunctional, horn.  
  
"Father.  The coast is clear.  Initiate phase two of Operation Find the Deed to The Mystery Shack...  I really should have thought of a better name for that."  
  
"Sure thing, sugar pie," he said, turning the key in the ignition three times before the car spat and sputtered to a smokey start.  He backed out of the undergrowth, waiting until they reached the road to turn the headlights on, just in case Stan happened to wake up.  
  
With a flashlight in hand, Gideon studied journal two on the drive to the Mystery Shack, looking over the entry about an incantation listed as an "emergency key" to what was, at the time the journal was written, the front door to a "haven for scientific research" in the woods.  Now, Gideon figured it must be the museum door.  The incantation seemed easy enough, the tough part was going to be eluding the security cameras.  Maybe Stan didn't seem like the scholarly sort of fellow who would write something like the journal he held in his hands but he was certainly smart enough to suspect foul play if the cameras happened to black out for a few hours or if there was a power outage on the night he was glued to a chair, especially with no sign of a storm for miles.  
  
He flipped to a page detailing, "Invisibell Peppers" and reread the entry for the twentieth time that day.  "With easily 200 times the heat of a chili pepper, you'll be glad it turns you invisible before anyone can see how much you're crying.  These potent peppers grow in Blaze's Bog at the southern tip of the enchanted part of the forest.  Beware of dragogre dens."  
  
He swallowed hard, wondering if he'd be able to handle the heat of the single pepper he'd pillaged before one of the mentioned dragogres awoke to find him snooping in their garden.  Trying to escape something that could turn invisible with a bite of a pepper (that only seemed to fuel its fiery breath) was not something he ever wanted to attempt again.  He'd had to dunk his head in swamp water twice to avoid having his pompadour set on fire.  By the time he got home, he didn't even want to know what was in his deflated hair.  He ended up burning his clothes and demanded his mother bleach the entire bathroom after he'd washed up.  He shivered just thinking of the algae-ridden swamp stench and the feeling of soggy socks in his equally soggy shoes.  
  
As the car rumbled up the driveway to the shack, popping and puttering as if the engine might surrender to death at any moment, Gideon pulled the pepper from his pocket and a single serving carton of both chocolate and regular milk from a cooler under his feet.  He hoped those, combined with the several bottles of water he'd packed, would ease the peppery pain he was about to inflict on himself.   _Eyes on the prize,_  he told himself, imagining the deed in his hands and the giant figure of himself looming over his vision of Gideonland.  Even better, he could practically see the parts and pieces, hidden somewhere underground, possibly right below where his father had parked, stored in his warehouse.  Even better he could imagine himself finally finding journal one somewhere on the property.  Excitement tingled in his limbs as he pictured himself absorbing the text and learning all about the doomsday device, how to build it, and the power it held.  _It's all in there somewhere...  It's just gotta be._  
  
Before taking the dreaded plunge into pain, he tucked his hair into a hair net and slipped a messenger bag filled with supplies and a two-way radio over his shoulder.  If what the journal detailed was correct, anything he was wearing or holding when he took a bite of the pepper would disappear with him.  With one final deep breath, he opened his mouth and swallowed the whole pepper in one bite, like tearing off a bandage in a single quick motion.  
  
"It burns!  Oh lordy it burns!" he shouted, just as glad as the journal said he'd be that no one could see the tears streaming over his flaming cheeks.  If he hadn't fully disappeared, he imagined they'd be as red as his father's tropical print shirt.  Between breaths puffed out, as if he could spit the fire away, he downed both milk cartons and two bottles of water before finding the ability to wipe his cheeks and blow his nose.  
  
With eyes still watering, mouth and throat still smoldering, and nose still dripping, he stammered through what felt like fire ants coating the inside of his mouth, "This should last about two hours.  Give me a five minute warning or let me know if you see anyone coming, father."  
  
"Alright, sugar pot.  I will," Bud answered, waving his two-way radio in the air.  
  
After slamming the car door shut, Gideon trotted up to the museum door, thankful for the trail of footprints left by tourists before the heatwave hit.  Though they were a few days old, he figured his would blend in just fine with them.  The steps squeaked under his feet and the porch seemed to protest his presence as he approached the door.  All he could do was hope the incantation would still work if he wasn't visible...  Or that it wasn't some sort of magical voice recognition system.  
  
He took a deep breath, flicking and swishing his hand in an inverted L figure, just as the journal's diagram depicted, as he enunciated the incantation, "Alo-home-opena!"  
  
He giggled with glee as the lock clicked, then slipped on a pair of gloves before reaching for the doorknob.  It opened with ease and he let himself in, locking it behind just in case he needed to made a quick exit through another door or window.  Stan might have been indisposed but there was no way of knowing how long Dipper and Mabel would be distracted by the merman rescue mission.  
  
Before moving off the mat by the door, he removed his shoes and swapped them out with a brand new pair of slippers from his bag, unwilling to leave a single footprint behind, especially since it looked like the handyman must have just mopped the floor.  He started off with a general sweep of the home and business, cringing at the el-leaf-ant display in the museum and the snow globes in the gift shop.  "So tacky," he tsked to himself.  The belching Stanford Pines bobble heads were no match for his adorable Lil' Gideon talking plushies.  But, he couldn't afford to waste time criticizing the fool's taste in knickknacks.  In the living room, he couldn't help staring into the aquarium at Mabel's lobster and remembering their magical date together.  Despite his invisibility, an axolotl with an eerie smile drifted up to the glass and appeared to stare straight at him with eyes that he swore peered right into his soul.  It was almost like a guard dog trying to use some sort of horror movie creep-out tactic to scare him away.  With a shiver, he backed away and continued on.  
  
The kitchen was...   _Ew.  Is that half a possum on the counter?  What do these people eat?_  
  
He backed away, refusing to even enter and decided to see what the staircase in the hall led to.  
  
Upstairs he found the bathroom (ew, again, though he debated for a moment on borrowing some of Mabel's pomegranate moisturizer for the stubborn spots on his elbows.) and a door he assumed, from the keep out signs posted on it, must have been Stan's bedroom.  If it hadn't been locked (and reeked of menthol and cigars), he would have snooped around right then.  There was, after all, a chance he kept the deed somewhere in there and if he didn't find it anywhere else in the house, he might just have to brave the grossness.  
  
Up a second fight of stairs, he found himself in the center of a triangle of moonlight cast onto the gnarled wooden planks below his feet.  Following it to its source, he gasped, his blood running cold at the sight of the stained glass window.  He'd seen it from the outside before but for some reason, he'd never paid enough attention to notice the eye in its center.  "Creature 362," he gasped.  "Do you really have some connection to this place?"  Given the dreams he'd been having lately, he was more certain of it than his murmured question suggested.  He backed away from the light, a shiver running through him as his bottom collided with another closed door.  
  
Turning, he caught a glimpse of a moving shadow under the door which, by the look of the scrapbooking supplies strewn on the floor around it and the Ghost Harassers harassment kit sitting beside it, he could guess belonged to Mabel and Dipper.  He held his hand to his chest as if it could suppress the thumping of his heart, listening for any sound and watching the shadow bob from side to side under the door.  
  
_No.  There's no way Dipper and Mabel made it back home already... Wait..._  
  
He let out a sigh of relief as he realized the shadow's movement matched the rhythm of a snorting breath.  It had to be Mabel's pig.   _Shame_ , he thought.  As much as he would have loved at least seeing where she kept all of her delightful sweaters, he thought better of facing an encounter with her pig.  If he thought the axolotl downstairs was like a guard dog, it had nothing on what he figured Waddles might be capable of.  
  
He crept away from the door and tip-toed back downstairs, ready to search the rest of the lower floor.  After finding nothing more in the ballroom than some broken mirrors left over from the maze Stan kept sending him bills for and an eerily empty parlor, he discovered what had to be, judging by the "Best Boss" sticker on the door, Stan's office.  Finding it unlocked, he let himself in and scanned the moonlit room for any potentially obvious hiding spaces.  Filing cabinets towered above him with papers sticking out of the drawers like tongues and a cabinet with broken doors supported what he hoped were supplies used in the old man's taxidermy figures.  More papers were strewn across the desktop, stuffed into its drawers, and crammed into boxes piled in the corner.  
  
"Ugh!  This is going to be like lookin' for a grain of salt in a bag 'a sugar!" he snorted, nearly tugging at his hair.  "Where do I even start?!"  
  
He heaved a sigh and started with the bottom drawer in the filing cabinet in the far corner, squinting to read anything he could in the almost nonexistent light.  "And of course he doesn't bother to label his file folders!" he grumbled, pulling out each one to look inside and finding nothing but old tax forms, junk mail, and thirty years worth of receipts.  Finally, he climbed to the top drawer of the final filing cabinet but, as he fished around inside, his foot slipped and he tumbled down grabbing onto a table cloth to try to ease his fall.  
  
It didn't.  Instead, he tore it right off of what he thought was just a table meant to hold up a lamp and fell with a thud right on his behind.  Luckily for him, the lamp simply teetered back and forth but settled back into place right on top of...  
  
"A SAFE!  I should have known you'd have a safe in here, Stanford Pines.  I bet there's more'n just cash in there..."  
  
He leaned his ear to it, ready to start cracking its code, but jumped away as static crackled from the two-way radio in his bag.  
  
"Gideon, my boy.  You got five more minutes until that invisibility thingy wears off," his father warned.  
  
"Dang it!  I think I found where he keeps the deed!  Just give me a few more minutes!" he whined the same way he would if he was asking to sleep in on a school morning.  
  
"I would if I could but you told me to make sure you're out of there before that stuff wears off."  
  
His father was right.  He needed to get out and fast.  He replaced the cloth over the safe, assuring the lamp was centered in the same place he'd found it and jogged out of the office.  
  
"One more minute, son," his father warned as he sped through the hall, bolting back to the gift shop and his escape.     
  
If Ford hadn't been knocked out cold by Bill, he might have looked up to the security monitor in his room and caught footage of a ghostly blur of Gideon running down the steps.  
  
  
****  
  
  
"Dr. Pines?"  
  
The voice garbled through Ford's ears, reverberating through his aching head.  A groan grated through his throat as he lifted his forehead away from the bars of his cell, blinking in the amber light from beyond them.  Despite their padding, they'd left a stripe of reddened flesh on either side of his face.  He smoothed back his hair and cracked his stiffened shoulders as he sat back, cross legged on the floor.  
  
"Dr. Pines, it appears your eye has been bleeding again," said the voice of wax Larry King from the vent.  
  
Somewhat dazed, Ford lifted his hand to his eye, his glasses pushing up against his forehead as he wiped a sticky stream from below his bottom lid.  He lowered his hand, eye focusing on the red smear.  "Heh..." he breathed, his lips curling up as his laugh grew in volume, his chest shaking with the sound.  
  
"Um.  Dr. Pines?  Are you alright?" the wax head asked, edging deeper into the vent.  
  
"I'm not having hallucinations," Ford answered, his smile widening in relief and his cadence almost excited, "I'm seeing inside Bill's mind!"  
  
He stared blankly at his red-streaked hand, his airy laugh faltering and fading until a sickening gag lurched up from the pit of his stomach, wringing the back of his throat.  He slapped his hand over his mouth, red smearing into his stubbly beard as he scrambled to his feet.  Stumbling over pillows, struggling to suppress the spasms in his esophagus, he galloped to the bathroom and barely made it to the sink in time.  
  
The wax head clanked its way back up to the vent, tipping to one side in time to see Ford round the corner into the bathroom.  He grimaced at the blarhhhhgs and horrrrlllllkks interspersed with gasps and groans that billowed out from behind the door.  Before he could voice any queries or comments of concern, the grow light in the corner flickered on and the fountain's motor whirred to life for the day.  As the first trickle of water dripped over the faux rocks, he reverted to no more than the head of a wax model.  
  
Ford fell to the floor, clutching the toilet and squeezing his eye shut as everything he'd experienced through Bill's perspective caught up with him.  Bouts of nausea swelled and ebbed until he gagged on nothing at all, his stomach achingly empty.  He wanted to stand, wished he could leave but even if his rubbery arms managed to lift him to his knees, they wobbled below him, refusing to hold his weight.  
  
Despite the heatwave rolling through the world above, the chill of the linoleum below cut straight through his pajama bottoms as if he'd sat in a snow bank.  A tremor rattled his limbs, shame washing over him and, for a moment, he wished he could drown in it.  It might be better than admitting he'd be fine with falling asleep on the bathroom floor if he wasn't so afraid of what Bill might do.  He'd respected the space and its contents as necessary to Ford's survival (and, he'd claimed, for the sake of not having to deal with human filth) but he'd also made it clear that it wasn't meant to be a sanctuary for him to retreat to, that he could just as easily take those privileges away.  As much as Stan had been careful to avoid any unnecessary hazards in the room, Bill had proven in the past that he could get creative with something as simple as a solid wall.  Ford didn't even want to imagine the damage the sink's tap could do if Bill decided to bash his head against it, especially because...  
  
He lifted himself up enough to lean over the toilet, but as much as his throat heaved, it didn't change that there was nothing left to come up.  When the wave passed, he slid back onto the floor, wiping his mouth, his heart thrumming against his ribs.  He'd seen, or rather, practically  _been_ , Bill when he found the leather bound book in his mindscape labeled "Bill's Mind".  He'd felt his entire being burn red and how he'd barely contained the urge to burn everything to dust.  
  
"He knows.  He know's I've been seeing into his mind.  He knows it and he can't erase it and he's...  Is he angry enough to...  No...  I could feel it.  He still wants me alive.  But for how long?"  He rambled to himself, his throat tightening again, "Calm down calm down calm down." he repeated until he almost laughed.  It was funny, he thought, that for all the times he'd been ready to end things himself, some sort of survival instinct still persisted within him.  Maybe it was the medications doing their job or maybe it was his own oscillation between exhausted resignation, hope that he might see the family and the outside world again, and a visceral desire to squeeze the life out of Bill with his own hands, but at that moment, he wasn't ready to die and, from the way his chest seemed to squeeze the breath out of him, it was possible he feared it, even.  
  
Ford wasn't sure when he'd done exactly the thing he dreaded doing - falling asleep on the bathroom floor - but he awoke to a frozen bottom and cramped legs, his arms folded over the toilet seat and head resting upon them.  Staggering out, he looked up to the clock to find he'd slept nearly all day.  In a moment of surging panic, he checked himself over for injuries, searching for bruises or bloodshed to find no sign of Bill's wrath.  
  
"It's true, then," he muttered to himself. "He still wants me alive but he's not willing to let me see too deep into his mind.  I bet I'd find his perspective on my memories there and he wouldn't be able to hide them from me anymore..."  
  
  
****    
  
  
Stan hummed to himself as he opened the oven, snorting when the poof of released heat steamed up his glasses.  He could barely see the tray he pulled out, nor the foil takeout container sitting atop it as he set it on the stove's burners.  With a grunt, he pulled off his oven mitt and fanned himself with it until the fog faded to the corners of his lenses, letting him see the meal's almost burnt cheese topping.  The probably-closer-to-mystery-meat-pie that Greasy's Diner passed off as shepherd's pie might not have compared to what he'd tried in London but it still smelled pretty good to a nose sending signals to an empty stomach.  
  
"Memories are weird," he thought as he divided the meal between two paper bowls, careful to keep the layers of meat filling and potato as intact as he could.  As much as his trip across the ocean had gone south pretty quickly, he could remember the excitement of his arrival there and how he still associated his first meal in town with that feeling of accomplishment.  Had his parents or brother managed to travel overseas?  Not that he knew of.  It was, at the time, the one thing he could say he'd done that sounded impressive...  As long as he didn't mention that he spent the remainder of his time there in jail.  
  
He often wondered if he should share a bit more about his travels with Ford, though he usually avoided the topic, not just because of his own follies, failures, and hardships along the way, but because he knew he wasn't the only one who dreamed of traveling someday.  Ford may have gotten distracted by his research for a while, he may have even associated their childhood dream with irresponsibility and anger for a decade or so, but that didn't mean it hadn't been rekindled over the years, or that he'd given up on it...  Or, at least Stan hoped he hadn't given up on it.  
  
That thought, and everything it stirred inside him, spurred him forward.  He covered the tray, piled snacks, sodas, paper cups, and spoons on top of the fresh clothes already stuffed inside the misprinted Mister Y Hack tote bag, and headed toward the vending machine in the gift shop.  After the usual anxiety-ridden descent of the elevator he walked the few steps through the former control room toward Ford's door.  He kept saying he'd recycle the rest of the computer parts and put up some proper lights and wallpaper someday but something about it felt too final, like he'd be accepting that this was their fate for the rest of their lives.  Instead, he stubbed his toe on the husk of a supercomputer for the third time that week and let out a string of huffed curses, balancing the tray on one hand and pulling the straps to both the tote and his tank top back up onto his shoulder with the other.  
  
As usual, he sucked in a deep breath before reaching out to knock at Ford's door, holding it as he asked, "You awake, Ford?"  
  
"Stanley?" the answer came with about the amount of surprise as he expected, given the early hour.  "Yes, I-I am.  Is everything alright?"  
  
"Yeah," he answered, letting himself in to find Ford standing at the bathroom door, rubbing his still-damp hair with a towel. "I went over to Greasy's to pick up food and by the time I got back, the kids said they were more tired than hungry.  They crashed pretty hard so we probably got some time if you feel like drawing or doing some origami or somethin' tonight," he added with a shrug and bent over to set the tray and supply bag on the floor.  
  
"That would be more than welcome right now," he answered, his melancholy smile hidden from his brother as he stepped back into the bathroom to hang up his towel.  
  
"I brought a bunch of snacks in case you're getting low, too.  And some fresh clothes and pajamas, if you wanna change out of those ones," he added, digging a folded pile of fresh clothes out of the tote and sending packages of Chipackers and jelly beans tumbling out its sides.  
  
Reemerging from the bathroom, Ford answered, sniffing at the underarms just to be sure, "These should be fine for tonight, thanks."  
  
"If you wanna shave, we can take care of that too," Stan suggested, passing him the pile of clothes and his medications for the next day.  
  
He rubbed his overgrown chin, unsure if he really cared about a shave at the moment.  Stepping back into the bathroom, he set the clothes on top of the pile of unused clothes Stan had brought yesterday and shrugged, settling on a "Maybe," before trading out his empty daily dose container for the filled one.  
  
"So, what do ya wanna do tonight, then?" Stan asked, turning to look over the bookcase loaded in art supplies, books, and magazines.  "The new issue of Strange Science came the other day.  I got it upstairs if you wanna look at it.  Dipper found it and already read it.  Had to tell him I got a free subscription with my last order of taxidermy supplies."  
  
"Actually," Ford answered, tossing the empty daily dose container at Stan's tote bag, unimpressed that it hit its mark.  If Bill leaving him alone for a while was a possibility, maybe he didn't need to worry that his good eye had begun bleeding.  Still, he couldn't help the knot winding up inside him at the thought.  Just in case, he figured, he should take advantage of every moment he could.  With that thought, he continued, "Sketching sounds enjoyable, if you don't mind."  
  
"Yeah?  Alright, sure."  He pulled out a package of handmade paper whose edges were left raw and frayed rather than cut straight.  Thanks to Bill's antics, he'd discovered that particular type went a long way in preventing paper cuts.  Reaching for a box of 100 Cray-Cray Crayons, he asked, "Any preference on color this time?"  
  
"Anything but yellow."  
  
"Ha ha ha, I wouldn't do that you ya unless you were drawing a bunch of lemons or something," he said, the smell of wax wafting out as he opened the box's lid.  "Actually, what is it you wanna draw?"  
  
Ford took a seat in a pile of pillows near the bars and replied, "Hmm.  Perhaps a landscape?  Or the lake?"  
  
"Blue and green it is," he said, pulling a deep green and vivid blue from the box then stuffing it back on the shelf between a shoe box filled with finger paint and a childhood photo album.  
  
Stan taped a sheet of the paper to a piece of cardboard edged in glued-on felt.  It took a while to get the right mix of a surface that was hard enough to draw on but not so much so that it could be weaponized.  Even so, he'd discovered the need for felt on its edges to avoid even more paper cuts, as well as the need for frequent replacement.  But, it was the best solution they'd come up with so far.  
  
He sat on the floor pillow with a grunt and passed the paper and crayons through the bars.  Accepting them, Ford asked, "So what happened last night?  Why were the kids ready for bed so early tonight?"  
  
Stan uncovered the food tray and squeezed the sides of Ford's paper bowl enough to fit it between the bars while narrowly avoiding spilling any of his meal.  "Guess being up all last night then working at prying my ass off of a chair all day was a bit much for 'em," he answered, handing Ford a spoon.  "Anyway, I told them I was gonna warm my dinner up so I could get away with bringing you something better'n a sandwich or cold pizza without them asking why they smelled food cooking."  
  
"I'm sorry, prying what, now?" Ford asked with a quirked eyebrow, accepting the bowl of food despite the uneasiness still lurking in his stomach.  He wished it would make up its mind as it both growled for food and flip-flopped in lingering nausea.  
  
"Welllll... Last night...  Didn't go so good.  I mean, for me and possibly Dipper, anyway," Stan answered lifting his own bowl into his lap.  "I got my chair an' all but as soon as I sat down, I fell asleep.  Totally missed everything the kids were up to.  Apparently Dipper got fired which, I think he'd agree isn't a big loss.  Wendy got fired today too so they'll both be back to work in the gift shop tomorrow."  
  
"I suppose that's best for them.  No more all night shifts, at least," Ford said, lifting a spoon full of probably-ground-beef up to blow on it.  "But that didn't answer my question about the prying," he added, stuffing the spoonful into his mouth and hoping for the best when it hit his stomach.  
  
"Ah yeah...  Welp, apparently Gideon won this round.  He put glue all over that chair and I was stuck to it until Mabel used something she brewed up that smelled like ma's nail polish remover to remove my hide from that chair," he explained, stuffing a spoon full of cheese-coated potato in his mouth.  
  
"You're kidding!?" Ford nearly snorted out potato as he tried not to laugh at the mental image of his brother glued to a chair.   
  
"Nope.  Kid got me good this time," Stan said, slurping another bite off of his spoon.  
  
With a deep breath and at least half of his attention focused on keeping his food down, Ford shifted the subject, "What about Mabel?"  
  
"Oh, you're gonna love this," Stan chuckled, cracking open a soda with a pop and fizz.  "That guy she was interested in?  Turns out he was a merman."  
  
"Was he really?!" Ford asked, his eye lighting up despite far too many things weighing heavy on his mind.  "That's incredible!"  
  
"I mean, in a way, yeah," he elaborated, splitting the soda between two cups,  "But she helped him get back to the lake so he could find his way home through the river."  
  
"Oh.  So they may never see each other again."  
  
"Yeah.  Shame.  They actually seemed to really like each other."  
  
"Well, if Mabel befriended a merman and helped him return home, she's just made herself some powerful allies."  
  
"You think?"  
  
"Yes, well, at least if their treaty with the narwhals is still intact and if they ever managed to make peace with the manatees," Ford explained, reaching through the bars for his cup of soda.  
  
"...Right," Stan said with a raised eyebrow, "Well anyway, I made like I didn't believe he was a merman.  These kids gotta stop getting involved in the weird shit in this town.  They're gonna get themselves hurt," he added, staring into his cup and the soda swirling within.  
  
"Maybe you were right and we shouldn't have agreed to host them for the summer."  
  
"Nah, I think you were right that it's good to have them around for awhile," he said with a shrug and gulped away half of his soda before returning to his food.  Mashing it aimlessly with his spoon, he asked, "So.  How are you doing?  Have any more hallucinations?"  
  
Ford wished he hadn't just taken a swig of soda.  He could feel the bubbles popping in his nose as he nearly snorted it back out.  "Well.  Um.  About that," he paused with the pretense of coughing before deciding it would be easier to spit out the truth.  "I wasn't certain before but now but...  I know for a fact they aren't hallucinations."  
  
"Um...  What?"  
  
He lowered his cup, setting it outside the bars, staring at it as he answered, "I...  I was seeing into Bill's mind."  
  
"Um..."  Stan repeated, "WHAT?!"  
  
"It's crazy, I know but...  I...  I had several more and it...  It was...  Horrifying doesn't even begin to describe it,"  with a nauseated groan, he gulped in desperation to keep down the few bites he'd swallowed.  Gagging, he covered his mouth and moaned, "I think I'm going to be sick again..."  
  
"What do you mean, again?"  
  
"I spent nearly the whole day in the bathroom but I couldn't help it," he replied, setting his bowl of food aside and cupping his hand over his mouth.  "I felt it, Stanley.  I felt everything he felt!  I saw what he's done, the destruction, death, and torment he's inflicted on other worlds.  I felt his unbridled joy as he burned societies to the ground, his excitement at the idea of crushing our world between his teeth, his rage as he saw refugees escape his ire and the spark of delight when he found and annihilated them.  It was like I WAS him but...  Somehow still myself at the same time."  
  
"Holy Moses, Ford," Stan replied with wide eyes, "I...  I can't even imagine.  You got your own feelings about seeing something like that, then his, then more of your own because of what his were and 'cause you felt them too.  Shit.  How are you even making words right now?"  
  
"B-because...  I-I think...  We might have an edge on him now," He explained, one hand grasping a padded bar.  "He knows.  He knows what I've seen and he's been trying to erase my memories of it all and, for some reason, it seems like he can't and he's angry...  He hates it but he still want's me alive and that pisses him off even more...  Stanley... I," he pressed his hand to his mouth again, suppressing another gag before he could continue, "I always guessed he enjoyed tormenting me but I could never imagine how much it actually is like a toddler gleefully kicking down a sandcastle."  
  
Stan blinked, uncertain if Ford was saying what he thought he was.  Did he really see Bill harm him through his perspective?  "Uh..." he wasn't sure he wanted the answer but he spat out the question anyway, "Wait.  What?!"  
  
Ford answered with a gruff sigh and a simple, "Yeah..." as he rolled up his sleeve.   Slowly, he pushed his arm between the bars until Stan could see the faded scars spelling out "Bill was here".  Right beside them was a newly reddened and scabbed bite mark.  
  
He wanted to curse.  He wanted to use every filthy word he could think of and punch something into oblivion but all he could do was stare with wide eyes and stutter, "That...  That's messed up."  
  
"...Yeah... " Ford answered, withdrawing his arm and rolling his sleeve back down.  "But if he wants me alive but doesn't want me seeing into his mind and can't do anything about it when I do..."  
  
Stan shook his head and filled in the blank as his own mind worked it out, "He's gonna leave you alone unless he really needs to possess you for some reason...  Does that..." his heart picked up tempo and he couldn't help the hopeful excitement coursing through his veins as he asked, "Does that mean you could actually come upstairs for a while?!"  
  
"While I believe you're right about him possibly leaving me alone," Ford answered with a shake of his head, "I think it's still unsafe to assume he wouldn't try to make me harm you so he can use me to rebuild the portal."  
  
Stan's hopes visibly shattered and fell to the floor with his downtrodden, "Oh..."  Somehow, he managed to pick up a few pieces and glue them back together, "But you think he really will leave you alone for a while?"  
  
"Yes.  Though now, I almost wish he wouldn't.  If I could catch another glimpse of his mind, maybe I could figure out who those pawns were that he was talking about.  Or regain some of the memories he's hidden from me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crkkv. Pbbjp ifhb vlr al x cfkb gly lc qlojbkqfkd vlropbic tfqelrq jv ebim.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [ Past codes decoded here. ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
>  
> 
> Gideon's plan was almost flawless. Too bad invisibility didn't stop the cameras from picking up doors opening and closing...


	27. Gaining Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill drops in on Ford for a quick memory wipe but Ford makes a discovery that could change everything... Whether that's terrifying or triumphant, he and Stan can't be sure. Stan finds his office has been rummaged through and checks the security tapes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Thanks to everyone who voted for an ending preference. The outcome wasn't what I expected but that's a good thing! Makes for an interesting writing experience.
> 
> ~In a future chapter, I'm going to need first names for Dipper and Mabel's parents. If you leave some suggestions in the notes, I'll draw from a hat or make up a new poll for them :D
> 
> ~In reading over the last chapter, I missed making something clearer in the editing phase - When Stan said to Mabel that it's not everyday you meet a merman, he was acting like he was going along with her story (he knows its true but he's still trying to hide that he knows how weird this town is.)
> 
> ~Sorry this is a short chapter. Things have been incredibly busy here and I didn't want to miss another update. I'm not sure if there will be one next week or if it will be two weeks again but, ideally, I'd like to have at least another short one ready for next Saturday.

As piqued as his curiosity was, Stan avoided asking Ford too many questions about what he'd seen in Bill's mind.  Though, between what Ford had freely mentioned, and how he'd nearly lost his dinner at the thought of it, Stan struggled to suppress his own imagination, even if it was like trying to hold eight squirming puppies in one arm to prevent them from chasing a squirrel into a bramble of thorns.  It was bad enough that Ford admitted he'd originally considered writing about it but, when Stan reached for the notebook and a pen, he said he couldn't handle actually doing it anytime soon.  
  
Instead, Stan focused on the electric razor in his hand, watching and listening for any sign of a warning from his brother that Bill might be taking control.  Even if it seemed unlikely that the demon would show up and even if Ford could provide a few seconds warning, they'd both agreed to follow their usual routine of restraints and caution.  
  
They'd say a shave without incident proved Bill truly was leaving them alone but Stan couldn't deny that Ford was right when he suggested Bill could easily be trying to lure them into a false sense of security, especially if he HAD found another pawn.  If anything, they needed to double their precautions, keeping a lookout for warning signs from the outside world as well.  
  
But, for tonight, a freshly showered and shaved Ford was willing to take advantage of his potentially free time and distracted himself with doodles of alien figures drawn to match Stan's prompts of aardvark crossed with a teakettle, ten-eyed chameleon with a beta fish tail, and "you've seen them both so what if Mothman and the Jersey Devil had a kid together?"  When Stan eventually started staring at the TV in a haze, muttering "'m not tired," every time Ford suggested he should get upstairs and sleep, he switched to a sketch of themselves as kids.  Before long, he turned the piece of cardboard made into a drawing surface over to find a second sheet of paper taped onto its back and lost himself to hyper-focus on a blue monochromatic landscape of Gravity Falls Lake drawn from his memories of it in the eighties.  Once he finished and rejoined the world around him, he found Stan nodding off.  
  
Ready to face resistance again, Ford whispered, "Psst.  Hey Stan.  You should get to sleep now."  
  
"Huh," he blurted, lifting his chin from his chest.  Waving his brother off, he added, "Just five more minutes, ma," and slouched down until he laid on his side on the floor pillow in front of the TV.  
  
Ford's cheeks puffed out in frustration.  If only he could reach Stan by stretching through the bars, he could nudge him awake.  Letting his face deflate, he considered leaving him be.  If the kids were as tired as he'd said they were, surely they wouldn't notice if he spent the night downstairs again...  
  
That was when Stan rolled onto his back, forcing Ford to turn away, grimacing and wishing his snoring brother had worn something a little more substantial than his typical boxers.  "At least when he means to sleep down here he's got a blanket covering all that," he thought.  "Ha, if only there was something like brain bleach that could erase that from my mind...  Except..."  The idea felt wrong in a way he couldn't describe, a way that extended beyond the irony of wishing to forget something as a joke while fighting to remember precious pieces of his past-  "Memory gun!" he blurted, feeling his consciousness tugged away, swimming against the current in his own mind to shout, arms stretching through the bars, straining to touch even a toe to rouse his brother.  "Stanley!  Fid-"  
  
But it was already gone, the half-uttered name lost between an exhausted brother and the burning rage of a demon as his body slouched against the bars, silent aside from shallow breaths.  
  
His window to the outside world faded, exhaustion from fighting the invading presence weighing him down until he was locked once more in the darkest corner of his own mind.  "Where is it?  Where is it?!" he repeated, his formless consciousness groggy but still searching for the speck of light that had led him into Bill's mind before.  "There!" With the feeling of being jolted from a deep sleep by a splash of icy water, he dove for it, or perhaps, drew it closer to him.  Everything was so abstract, he couldn't tell what, exactly, to consider it.  Either way, he strained and struggled, watching the light's edges burn, just like before, the portal widening, or moving closer, or...  Something.  It didn't matter.  The desire to catch some glimpse of Bill's memory of his own memories, the one's he'd burned or hidden, pushed him forward until the memory of even remembering a name slipped from his grasp.  
  
And suddenly he was staring at the light, wondering what he was doing.  Why had he been banished to his own mind again?  The light's burning edges flickered and faded, the portal seeming to heal itself, narrowing, or drifting away, or perhaps he was being swept away.  "What was so important that Bill decided he needed to intervene even if it means I might see into his mind again?" he wondered.  It had to be something big, some memory that could ruin everything-  
  
Energy surged through him again and it felt as though he kicked his feet behind him, pushed himself forward even though there was no physical form to push, no sensation of physical strain but a drain on his energy nonetheless.  "Whatever it was was important.  I have to find it!"  The light burned again, the flames swelling in time with his own faltering force, the portal pulsing and opening again.  
  
_Wait._  
  
For once in his life, he paused before rushing in as he seemed to float before the entrance to the demon's mind.  The burning subsided with his hesitation and the realization hit him.  "This isn't just happening...  I'm making it happen..."  
  
He focused, trying to purposely raise and lower his panic fueled energy but finding it fringed in a form of excitement, the image beyond the portal flickering and shifting, the pace quickening as frustration wove its way into his consciousness until he could see no more than blurs of color, the flames on the edges fizzling out as his energy drained.  
  
"N... no.  I was close...  To...  Something..." he thought as he felt himself thrust back to the forefront of his mind and a body that had blacked out.  
  
He never dreamed he'd want Bill to stay in his mind longer but if it meant he could find a way to purposefully snoop around in his, maybe it was worth the intrusion...  And whatever bruises he'd wake up to.  
  
Luckily, this time, it seemed there were none.  Ford awoke, slouched face-first against the bars with arms still stretched through them, to a snore from his sleeping brother.  Was Bill really in such a hurry that he didn't even bother to move his body at all?  He couldn't help grinning at the idea that the demon might be even the tiniest bit afraid of him in any way, even if it was delusional in the grand scheme of his predicament.  He knew there was a thin line he couldn't cross, that there was a point where his meddling could outweigh his usefulness to Bill and when the demon saw him as too much of a nuisance, he'd find a way to physically end his life or effectively kill him by obliterating his mind.  
  
His grin faded as he adjusted his glasses, glancing briefly at Stan to find that he'd managed to turn around in his sleep and curled up on the pillow so that anything his boxers revealed was flashing the photos on the wall instead of him.  
  
"Bleeding again, huh?  Did you tell him yet?," a voice asked flatly from inside the vent.  
  
"Shit-" Ford hissed, his hand flying up to rub at his eye.  "No, not yet.  Wait...  You didn't hear us talking tonight?"  
  
"I thought you might want some privacy so I hopped back to that storage area for a while."  
  
"Oh.  Well, thanks.  I think?" he said, grimacing at the blood smeared on his finger and wondering why he felt like he should be angry that the replica of Larry King's head _wasn't_ eavesdropping.  
  
"At least it's not as much this time?" the wax head said in a voice that sounded like he'd shrug if he could.  His volume increased to nearly a shout as he added, "You know, if you want to tell him now, I could wake him up for yo-"  
  
Ford leaned forward to shush him.  Wiping the his bloodied finger on a dark spot on his pajama bottoms, he explained,  "I really will tell him.  But it's not immediately necessary.  Let me wait until summer is over and the kids go home.  Let him have that.  Let me have that time, too.  Besides.  Ha ha...  I have something better to tell you both."  
  
"Fine.  Do me a favor and turn on the news at some point, then.  I want to see if it cooled down at all so I don't climb all the way back up this vent just to melt when I get upstairs."  
  
"Oh.  Alright.  I will," he answered, feeling overall like a deflating balloon at the thought of the wax head returning to the world above.  He wasn't even sure if he wanted him to stay but, the idea of him leaving still hurt beyond simple jealousy.  Some part of him wondered if it was because he didn't want to be alone again.  Another couldn't out-logic the irrational idea that he wasn't good enough.   _Of course I'm not.  There's an entire world up there.  Who would give that up to keep a failed scientist locked in his own basement company?_   He took a breath, wiping his eye one last time just to be sure no sign of red remained, and turned his attention back to the conundrum of how to wake a sleeping twin who was out of his reach.  
  
"Stanley?" he said, raising his voice a little but not so much as to startle him.  
  
Nothing.  
  
"Stan!" he turned up his volume.  
  
Still nothing.  
  
"Stanley!" he outright shouted, thumping his fist against the floor.  
  
"He's really out, isn't he?" the wax head said with a chuckle.  
  
Ford glanced around himself finding the two crayons and his drawing still behind the bars with him.  "Sorry, Stan," he apologized, picking up the green crayon and tossing it toward his sleeping brother's shoulder.  He snorted when it missed completely.  With a sigh, he picked up the remaining stub of a blue crayon, weighing it in his palm for a moment before aiming for the same spot only to have it bounce off Stan's head.  
  
Stan snorted waking up just enough to hear Ford call his name again.  "Huh, what?  Ugggh," he moaned, his joints cracking as he uncurled himself and rolled over.  
  
"Sorry for the rude awakening, Stanley, but you should get back upstairs.  It's almost morning," Ford warned.  "Besides, I have to tell you something."  
  
"Did you..." Stan said, picking up the stub of a crayon and squinting at it, "Did you seriously just throw a crayon at my head?"  
  
"Well, I...  I had to wake you up somehow and I couldn't reach you through the bars," Ford huffed, crossing his arms and turning away.  "Besides," he admitted in a grumpy mumble, his shoulders hunching, "I wasn't aiming for your head..."  
  
Stan quirked an eyebrow and spouted out the first thing that came to mind, "What are you, five?" and immediately cringed at himself.  He knew Ford had been missing his marks a lot since he'd lost vision in his right eye.  Sure he'd gotten a bit better again in the past week or so -there were less snack wrappers strewn across the floor than when it first happened- but still, it stirred something uncomfortable in Stan's gut to think of the frustration he must be feeling.  At least it seemed like he was still practicing, though.   _Maybe doing that thing where he throws a pillow up and catches it,_  he thought.   
  
"Hey, I'm not the one who fell asleep on the floor while watching cartoons past bedtime," he quipped.  
  
"Yeah yeah," Stan said, sitting up with a groan.  "What was it you needed to tell me?"  
  
He uncrossed his arms, turning back to Stan with a crooked smile, his upbeat tone seeming contrary to his words, "Bill was here again and-"  
  
"What?!  So he isn't going to leave you alone then," Stan rambled, something between rage, disappointment, and panic building in his tone.  "I knew it.  I knew that little turd wouldn't-"  
  
"He had a reason," Ford interrupted, leaning forward to wrap his hands around the bars.  "Granted, he made sure I can't remember it, but that's not important right now."  
  
"Uh, then what is?"  
  
"I think I can control it!" he answered, his voice almost excited.  
  
Stan raised an eyebrow.  "Control what?"  
  
"I think I can figure out how to control what I see in Bill's mind.  He didn't stay long enough for me to work everything out, though," he added, rolling back onto his heels, his arms drooping in disappointment.  
  
"Control it...  So like, you can get into his head and see what he's planning or something?"  
  
"Maybe.  I think.  I hope.  I'm not completely certain but...  I'm going to keep trying.  I just don't know how much he'll stand for before he considers me more trouble than I'm worth..."  
  
  
****  
  
  
"Son of a biii-iscuit-eater!"  
  
At the sound of their grunkle's gravely yell, Dipper sat bolt upright in his bed and Mabel moaned, rolling over and onto the floor with a thump and taking Waddles and half of her blankets with her.  
  
"What was that?!" Dipper squeaked, his voice cracking under the stiffness of parched throat.  
  
"Dunnno," Mabel slurred, pulling the rest of her blanket down on top of herself and cuddling up next to Waddles in a pool of morning light, both of them too sleepy to bother climbing back up onto the bed.  
  
"THAT ROTTEN LITTLE TWERP!"  
  
"Grunkle Stan?"  Dipper questioned, leaping out of bed, nearly tripping over the toes of his socks as he ran to the door.  
  
Mabel's groggier version of her brother's words was nearly lost under his concerned shout as she lifted herself up.  Rubbing her eyes, she followed Dipper down the stairs and into the living room to find their Grunkle standing in front of the TV with clenched fists.  
  
"Grunkle Stan?!  What happened?" Dipper asked, stepping down into the sunken room and the glow of the TV.  "Oh," he said flatly as he saw the screen.  
  
"What?  What is it?!" Mabel asked, jumping down the two steps and nudging her way between Dipper and her tensed up grunkle.  "Is that..." her voice trailed off as she squinted at a paused frame of security footage from the gift shop entrance and the blurred figure apparently running down the steps, "Gideon?"  
  
"I think it is," Dipper said, mirroring her expression and tilting his head like it would somehow make the picture clearer.  
  
"That brat glued me to a chair so he could break into the shack..." Stan snarled, his fists shaking.  
  
"Whoa, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, patting his hand.  "Why don't you sit down and tell us what's going on and we'll figure this all out."  
  
She tugged at his arm until he tipped back under a strength he didn't expect from a twelve year old girl.  In his mildly stunned state, both from the video and the tug at his arm, she managed to pull him back a few steps to his chair.  He gave in, flopping into it while his eyes remained fixed on the screen.  "It wasn't just a dumb prank," he muttered.  "I think he's trying to get the deed."  
  
"He didn't," Dipper asked, lifting himself up onto the arm of the chair, "Did he?"  
  
"No.  It's still in the safe but he got too close," he answered, shaking his head, "I went into my office this morning and everything seemed...  touched.  And not by me.  So I checked the security footage and found, uh, this little rat rummaging around in our house!"  Stan explained, hoping the kids wouldn't ask him to rewind the footage and see doors opening and closing, seemingly of their own will, and the files folders floating around with no visible sign of a body moving them.  Gritting his teeth, he thought to himself, "the kid must have found some weird thing in this fever dream of a town and used it to make himself invisible or something."  
  
Steadying himself to slide down from the chair's arm, Dipper said, "I'm going to go call the police."  
  
"Don't bother.  I've tried it before and no one wants to believe me over Gideon," Stan said with a sigh, pressing his hand against Dipper's chest to stop him from leaving.  The last thing he needed was the sheriff and his deputy seeing what looked like footage from Ghost Harassers and laughing at him.  Besides, it wasn't a total lie.  He already knew they'd just accuse him of altering the footage and trying to frame the kid.  
  
To his relief, Mabel agreed, "He's right.  No one in this town wants to believe Gideon could do anything other than be adorable.  We need a better plan.  Something cunning-ier than anything he could come up with.  Got any ideas, Dipper?"  She asked, nudging him with her elbow and the unspoken implication that maybe his journal might have some thoughts.  
  
"Uh, maybe-"  
  
"We're gonna set a trap," Stan interrupted, practically growling, his hands digging into his bare knees.  
  
"A trap?"  Dipper repeated, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of his grunkle's widening grin.  
  
"I like the way you think, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, lifting herself up onto the chair's unoccupied arm.  "What kind of trap?"  
  
"He found the safe.  I think he's assuming the deed is in there," he said, absently wringing his hands, "I'm gonna get a new one and rig it so we can catch him in the act."  
  
"How?" Dipper asked with a shrug.  
  
"That guy who lives in the dump can probably fix it up for us."  
  
"Old Man McGucket?" Dipper questioned.  
  
"Yeah.  I'm gonna go find him after the shack closes today.  You kids be alright here if I have Soos stay late tonight to watch over everything while I'm gone?"  
  
"Sure," Dipper answered at the same time as Mabel said "Yeah, we'll be fine."  
  
"Good.  Go get dressed and do something your parents wouldn't let you do at home, then, and I'll make us all some Stan-cakes."  
  
Dipper smiled wide at his sister who returned it with teeth loaded in shining metal.  
  
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Dipper asked.  
  
Mabel nodded and in unison they chanted, "Bedroom mini-golf!"  
  
"You go find something to make a models of world landmarks from and I'll get my glitter and glue from the kitchen!"  Mabel instructed, sliding off the chair's arm and adjusting her nightshirt over her shoulders.  
  
"Meet back in our room in ten minutes?"  
  
"Give me fifteen so I can brush my hair and teeth and I'll be there!"  
  
Stan couldn't help chucking as he watched Dipper jump down and high-five his sister.  He ran off to the gift shop, the door swinging shut behind him while she disappeared into the hall.  
  
Stan had just pressed rewind when her head popped back into the doorway with an, "Oh!  Grunkle Stan?"  
  
He fumbled with the remote, nearly dropping it before he managed to press stop.  "Y-yeah, what is it?"  
  
"Is it still alright if Candy and Grenda spend the night?"  
  
"Oh.  Heh.  Sure.  That's fine," he answered, turning the remote right-side-up in his hands.  "Soos was alright with it when they stayed over after the party so I don't see why he'd have a problem with it tonight."  
  
"Thanks, Grunkle Stan!"  
  
He smiled as he heard her trot back to the kitchen, her steps soft under her socked feet.  "Good," he thought, his eyes wandering toward the door hidden behind a large stone in the wall and the stale odor seeping through it. "If she's distracted for a while maybe I can get a few loads of Ford's laundry done without her needing the delicate cycle for a new sweater." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> X qoxm, ere. Tbii, fc cxiifkd fkql fq dbqp efj lkb pqbm zilpbo ql qxhfkd jv abxi, F pfkzbobiv elmb fq tlohp.
> 
> [ previous codes deciphered ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e).
> 
> Frustrating that this was the one time Wax Larry King was conveniently not listening in, isn't it...?


	28. A Trap?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill makes a new threat. Stan tells Ford he wants to set a trap for Gideon but are they the ones falling into a trap?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Another short chapter but uh, think of it as the second half of last week's?
> 
> ~Thanks again to everyone who's commented, suggested ideas, and participated in the ending poll! It's super helpful (even if your ideas don't get used, the suggestions tend to trigger ideas that do so you've definitely still helped!)
> 
> ~And thanks to everyone for name ideas for Dipper and Mabel's parents. Suggestions are still open until the chapter after this is published! I'll have a poll ready to go by then so everyone can vote on their favorites!
> 
> ~Things are breaking away from canon more and more. (Is this like peeling a bandage off slowly?)
> 
> ~Oh! I'm working on [ a document with notes from previous chapters ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t4XA0sL6w42e1Bv_P--ugSvVkRPCCmYDTWKcFJnBCAw/edit?usp=sharing) (to help me write future ones). It's like the CliffsNotes version with commentary... It's a work in progress as I'm posting this chapter but I'm planning on getting it up to date and keeping it that way. (I'm usually actively working on it sometime between 8am and 12pm EST) Anyway, feel free to stop by and add comments and suggestions if you'd like (or if you interpreted a scene or anything differently than I did or something, I'd love to hear it!) (I guess chat only works if you're invited to the document individually - sorry about that :/ But you could message me on [ tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rum-and-shattered-dreams) if you'd like!) I'm also working on a drawing of Ford's basement that will be posted on tumblr sometime soon.

The severed head of Wax Larry King had watched silently while the Pines brothers finished their meat pies, rolling his eyes as Stan updated Ford on the well-being of the two kids who had decapitated him in the first place.  It was a cruel irony _,_ he thought, how a plot to decapitate Stan had ended with himself as nothing more than a head,  wishing he could scratch his nose without rubbing it on the vent...

He perked up a little when Ford mentioned seeing inside Bill's mind, uncertain why the story of a man possessed by a demon was as interesting to him as it was, but drifted back into indifference as their conversation dwindled.  While Ford scribbled something in crayon and Stan stared at the TV, he leaned against the side of the duct, nodding off.  Stan's snore jolted him back to consciousness and he nearly snorted aloud.

Leaning forward, he could see his former nemesis's bottom half sprawled across the floor and his temporary roommate still locked behind padded bars, turned away from what had to be an unpleasant view.  He debated cracking a joke about, well, cracks, but before he could make a sound, Ford's head jerked up.  "Memory gun!" he blurted, scrambling to the bars and reaching through in a desperate gesture, his fingers stretching to touch his brothers toes.  "Fid-!" his voice strained airily with his shout, as if it took every bit of his energy to force the single syllable out before he collapsed face-first into the bars.  
  
"Memory gun?" the wax head repeated.  "Fid?"  
  
He hopped backwards with a clank as Ford's eye popped open, glowing yellow, a bead of blood swelling in its corner.  Though the man's body remained motionless, Bill's echoing whine snarled through his lips, "If you mention either of those things to him, I'll turn you into sealing wax."  
  
"Ah, welcome to our show, Mr. Cipher.  So, how do you propose to do that and do you think I'd still be cursed to come to life at night that way?" he replied, trying to bury the slightest tremor in his voice under the snore from below, "Would I be split into several different places or would my consciousness cease to exist?"  
  
"You'll feel it every time I melt a piece of you and smash it with my monogram!  If he remembers what's connected to those words," he growled, Ford's muscles visibly stiffening under the influence of the demon's aggravation, "he'll be worse than useless to me."  
  
"Does that mean you'll-"  
  
A sickly grin stretched his lips as he answered, "I'll obliterate his entire mind and this flesh box it's wrapped up in."  With that, his eye slipped close and he sagged completely against the bars.  
  
If he had a stomach, it would likely be flip-flopping by now.  Instead, his cheeks tingled and his jaw stiffened.  Though he'd lost all of his wax comrades in the wax uprising, he wasn't sure if he'd really felt much about it, or even them, before, but suddenly, he dreaded the thought of losing the only person left who talked to him or even knew he existed.  "Well," he mumbled, "This is an unpleasant feeling..."  
  
He wasn't sure why he lied to Ford, whether it was out of fear and self-preservation, to buy time, or because he wanted to see how things played out between the human and demon without causing a mental annihilation in the process.  He wasn't even sure if he needed to lie but he figured it would be easiest to pretend he knew as little as possible for the time being. 

  
  
****

  
"Burn burn burn!  Faster faster!"  Bill chanted, his body glowing red, arms whipping forward as he hurled raging fireballs at emerging memories of a bespectacled man, his southern twang, and the inventions he created.  Each one caught fire as it emerged from the pile of confusion, unsettled thoughts, and suppressed emotions in Ford's mind.  He thrust his arms apart with a guttural yell, scattering the ashes with an invisible but ferocious force.  
  
In a panic, he scanned the room, his sight darting between bookcases and boxes, searching for any remnants, any shred of a memory he might have missed.  
  
At least his head wasn't pounding yet.  At least it seemed the nerd hadn't made his way into his mind again yet.  But something still felt off...  Exposed or perhaps...  Vulnerable, even.  
  
Just as he was about to flee the smoky mindscape, a scrap of paper fluttered before his eye, the name "Fiddleford McGucket" written in artful cursive upon it.  He reached out, crumpling the scrap between his hands, his body shaking, frustration practically bursting out from between his bricks.   Just as it started to smolder he caught sight of a shelf labeled "acquaintances".  The corners of his eye lifted almost like a grin and he chuckled to himself.  
  
The flame fizzled and a thin trail of smoke wafted upwards from a blackened edge of the scrap as he unclenched his fist.  He reached for a particularly plain paperback, pulling the thin volume from the shelf.  It's cover bore a picture Bill recognized as Steve, the mechanic in Gravity Falls (though not, he noted, the cryptid Ford had referred to by the same name).  "Perfect," he said, smoothing out the paper scrap.  He reached for a roll of tape on the desk and taped the scrap over the name on the book's spine before filing it away again.  "That should buy me more time.  This vacation home might be getting obsolete and all but it'd be a shame to condemn it if it's still of some use.  I'd almost hate to have to burn it to the ground after all this time spent here," he couldn't even finish his sentence before he winced.  It felt like an electric jolt sizzled through his pointy head, bouncing around inside.  As the pain mounted, he sputtered and laughed.  "Who am I kidding, it's going to be a blast to see this stubborn old mule's mind go up in flames!"  
  
  
****

 

The sun hadn't even set when Stan arrived in the basement the next night, still wearing his suit shirt, unbuttoned and missing his bow tie.  He'd barely offered any pleasantries or even a greeting before rambling off a rant about how Gideon "broke into the house and went through my office!."  
  
"He what?!" Ford roared, rolling forward so his hands pressed against the padded floor, his shoulders tense and framing a face that looked cartoonishly shocked thanks to the wide, round eye on his cycloptopus eye patch.  
  
"He broke into the shack," Stan repeated, leaning back against the door and running his hand through his hair.  "I saw it on the footage from the gift shop.  He's trying to get the deed and he means business this time."  
  
"Ugh!  I'm sorry I missed seeing him.  How did I...?  Oh..."  Ford paused, his eyes drifting down to his fingers as they dug into the padding.  "Bill.  It must have been when I was uh...  I guess seeing his memories or into his mind..."  He let out a muffled growl, his fist thumping against the padding with a dull thud as he bit back the full force of his frustration.  He took a deep breath, focusing on the rise and fall of his chest before adjusting his tone to ask, "Did you call the police?"  He lifted his head and grasped the horizontal bar, using it for leverage to pull himself up to his feet.  
  
"Hell no.  They'd never believe me, especially considering the footage I have is just of a bunch'a doors opening and closing.  I mean, I honestly wouldn't blame them for not believing me anyway," he added, tugging at his shirt collar.  
  
"Shit.  Stanley, what are we going to do?"  He grasped the bars on either side of his head, shoulders and arms stiff as he suggested, "Should you rent a vault at the bank?"  
  
"I'd trust that even less at this point," Stan said with a shrug, stepping closer to the bars and lowering the usual misprinted tote bag from his shoulder. "That kid's into some weird stuff.  He made himself invisible somehow and if he can do that here, what else could he do inside a bank?"  
  
"What about keeping it on you, no, it would probably get too much wear and tear that way-"  
  
"I'm gonna get a new safe," Stan interrupted, leaning over to empty fresh clothes, tomorrow's medications, and an oversized plastic bag with half of a philly cheesesteak in it, still slightly warm and fogging up the inside with steam.  "and," he continued, "I'm gonna have it rigged up with an alarm.  I'll get the guy who put together the panic button for us to rig the alarm up to my pager so if anyone so much as touches the safe, I'll get an alert.  Then I can catch that little rat red-handed."  
  
"I hope so...  Wait, did you say Gideon was invisible?"  
  
"Right up until the last second when he ran out at the back porch.  Why?  You know something about that?" Stan asked, wrapping his hands around the bars to Ford's left.  
  
"I...  I might.  It sounds like the effects of invisibell peppers," he said, easing himself back down to a cross-legged position on the padded floor."  I remember, it was about a year after I first arrived here.  I stumbled into a garden filled with curious vegetables and peppers.  The dragogre it belonged to, Periwinkle was her name, nearly burned me to a crisp on sight but, she paused when I um...  I might have begged her to spare me in a less than dignified manner.  But, I remember my arm hurt for some reason and she could tell I was injured so she said she believed I wasn't there to steal from her.  And that's when... I...  Well..."  
  
"Did that thing where you ask a million questions?" Stan filled in, grunting as he knelt and handed Ford the sandwich.   
  
"Yes.  That.  She invited me into her home and asked a million questions back, wanting to know more about humans.  I told her what I could and promised I'd bring her some books.  When I did, she gave me an invisibell pepper as payment and told me it would make me invisible for approximately two hours.  It did exactly as she claimed, though I would not suffer through that much burning in my entire digestive system to try it again.  If Gideon did try one, I almost feel bad for him," he said with a shudder, practically feeling the sting in the back of his throat, among other places, again.  
  
"So you figure he found one of those peppers, then?" Stan asked, gathering up the dirty laundry Ford had passed through the bars sometime before he'd arrived.  "Anything else I should know about weird, cursed produce?"  
  
"I remember trading a few more times with her but, that seemed to be the only thing that had any remarkable mystical properties.  Otherwise it was simply carrots that grew in midair or iridescent strawberries the size of watermelons."  
  
"Huh. Still sounds like your kind of weird, though." Stan said, his head tilting as he watched his brother's shoulders droop, his expression softening.  
  
"Sometimes I miss visiting her.  I wonder if she even remembers me.  Or if she's even still alive," Ford mused, his head lowering as he lost himself in the bittersweet nostalgia of his youth and the pain radiating from his torso like time itself had punched him in the chest.    
  
Stan risked leaning forward, passing his hand between the bars to rest it on his shoulder, "I could go check sometime if you want."  
  
"Mayb- No.  It's too dangerous," he said with a sigh, cupping his head between his hands, "I know we're twins but it's been too long and even if she's still there, she might not recognize any resemblance.  She's a little possessive of her property and tends to...  burn things first and ask questions later.  Honestly I was lucky there was a decorative rock nearby that I could hide behind."  
  
Stan held back the urge to joke that she reminded him of someone else who tended to aim a weapon at your nose first and ask questions later.   _Too many bad memories attached to that one_ , he thought, suppressing a tremor.  Instead, he shifted closer, giving Ford's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.  
  
"You know," Ford said, attempting to lighten his tone, "the enchanted part of the forest, she lived at the southern tip, was full of fascinating anomalies.  Fairies, not the barfing kind, trolls, and...  Ha, sometimes I even miss the gnomes...  There were even..." Ford paused, his body stiffening and eye growing wide in fear.  "Stan get back!"  
  
Stan jerked his hand away before Ford could finish saying his name, scrambling backwards toward the door, tripping over his own feet, and landing with a thump on his rear, his back pressed against the gnarled wooden door.  
  
"Ha ha ha, I had to try!" Bill said, lifting Ford's lips into his typical exaggerated smile, baring equal parts teeth and gaps.  "Got away in a nick of time, eh Mac?"  
  
Stan snorted, lifting himself to his feet and smoothing out his shirt, fastening the top button as if it might make him look more menacing.  "I thought you might be keeping your distance for a while, Bill."  
  
"Nah," he said with a dismissive wave of Ford's hand.  "Fordsy may think he's getting somewhere but I got it all under control," he added with a malicious grin, lifting Ford to his full height and backing away from the bars until he appeared as little more than a silhouette with a single, glowing eye.  
  
Stan edged his arm toward his pocket, reaching inside and wrapping it around his keys, his fingers searching for the familiar weight of his sailboat keychain.  Whatever Bill was going to try, it was clearly too late to stop him from the opposite side of the bars.  
  
"What do you think?  Should I give him a little reminder of who's boss?" Bill threatened with entirely too much unbridled joy in his voice.  
  
Stan gained his balance, leaning forward on one leg, ready to dart for the barred door.  He'd let his guard down.  His heart pounded as he tried to focus on the present rather than cursing himself for the immediate past.  
  
_Was it all a trap?  Did we fall right into it?  Were we the pawns Bill was talking about all along?  It would be just like him to plot this all out, to make us believe he's been ignoring us, that Ford was learning to hold him off, that he was seeing into his mind- No.  It can't be or he wouldn't have let Ford warn me this time.  Unless that's part of the plan too!_  
  
Bill lifted Ford's hand, spreading his fingers to make it obvious what he intended to do next.

Two long leaps led Stan to the barred door, the key trembling in his grasp before Bill raised Ford's other hand.  The demon wrapped Ford's fingers around his pinkie as the keys clattered against the lock.  
  
"Not again.  No way.  Not again you bastard!" Stan spat, flinging the door open and dropping the keys with a seemingly ear-splitting clatter directly in the center of a tear in the carpet.  It felt like the world shook as he tackled Ford, the door swinging shut and latching behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krz pdqb ilqjhuv vkrxog L euhdn wklv wlph?
> 
>  
> 
> [ previous end notes decoded here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)


	29. Still Trying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill is a jerk. Stan and Ford might be tired but they're still trying new ways to defeat his jerkdom, even if they're risky. Stan gambles with his own life while Ford fights against Bill's control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Warnings - fighting, choke holds (in fighting context), makeshift restraints, injuries (as usual, nothing depicted graphically.)
> 
> ~Still working on [ the notes doc ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t4XA0sL6w42e1Bv_P--ugSvVkRPCCmYDTWKcFJnBCAw/edit?usp=sharing). Sorry there hasn't been much progress lately. Some things came up in life that required attention during the times when I'm usually able to work on it but I'll keep picking away at it whenever there's time.
> 
> ~[ The poll for Dipper and Mabel's parent's names is up! ](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZ1qB0jZpiJsnY9kGPPNnqgb14Y4fgX3q6lP6l_32As8fb6g/viewform?usp=sf_link)
> 
> ~Welp, that mistake in chapter 1 finally bothered me enough that I went and fixed it. Now, instead of Ford wondering how thin he'd gotten, he mentions that at least Bill lets him eat. No need to reread or anything, it's just a continuity fix because, at the time, I hadn't planned on developing this AU so much and hadn't thought deeply enough into it to realize a lot of things.

"Stanley!" Ford tried to scream, but only Bill's voice emerged in that sickening laugh which, despite having no physical form within his own mind, seemed to grate on his nerves.  Concentrating on the perceived feeling, he absorbed and filtered it, converting it to fuel, to pure determination to keep his window to the world open like it was the jaw of a beast threatening to snap down and plunge him into darkness - into the same sensationless void to which Bill had banished him countless times before.  
  
He didn't expect it to work.  It was wobbly and felt as though it took everything in him to hang on to the foggiest image and garbled fragments of words.  Still, it was there and growing clearer as he focused on it, just like when he'd first learned to hold onto the image years ago.  
  
He did it.  He actually did it.  He managed to hold off Bill long enough to warn Stanley AND maintain some connection to the world.   _I AM getting stronger.  This is proof!_  
  
He could see Stanley, backing away from him, tumbling down, his back pressed against the door.  He could hear Bill taunting, lying, claiming he had things "under control".  
  
_Bastard!  How dare-_  
  
His indignation snuffed out like a grease fire under a pot lid as an increasingly familiar glimmer caught his attention.  His view of the outside world constricted as he looked to the source.  Hovering to the right, somewhere high above, or far away, or perhaps just tiny, was the light he now knew led to Bill's mind.  
  
"Lie all you want, Bill.  I can feel it," he snarled, or at least, imagined he did so Bill would hear it that way if he bothered to read that thought, "I'm getting stronger and you're _losing_  control!"  
  
For the first time, he had a choice.  He could cling to his view of the outside world or dive into Bill's mind and attempt to hone his ability to choose what he saw inside.  If he could find Bill's memories of his own lost memories, maybe he'd have a chance of getting some sort of useful information to Stan before Bill...   _What will he do?_   _If he can't erase what I see in his mind...?_   He shook away the thought, convincing himself there was no time to make assumptions when there was a possibility of finding out for himself, glowing within his reach.  He needed to act now while Bill was...   _What IS he up to?_  
  
He couldn't be sure if Bill had shown up to erase anything from his mind but there was something he could check on.  He focused back on his view of Stan and his basement room for a moment, watching the aperture widen again.  Stan, though gritting his teeth and looking as if he wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands, was, indeed, safe on the other side of the bars.  The bars, though, were a worrisome distance away, a distance Ford already knew meant Bill wanted to hurt him, to do anything he could to tempt Stan into opening the cell to stop him.  But Stan knew better, had dealt with it in the past, had done as he'd instructed and left the room instead of letting Bill get to him, had shown the demon those tactics wouldn't work on them and-  
  
"No, Stan!  What are you doing?!  No no no no no!" He shouted inside his head, only able to watch in horror as Stan leapt for the barred door and let himself into the cell, the door clattering shut behind him.  
  
In a moment of panic, his attention shifted between the pinhole of light leading to Bill's mindscape and his view of...  His own hands?  He could only watch as the fingers of his right wrapped around the pinkie of his left, pressing it backward to its limit and...  The world appeared to turn on its head and all he could see was the star and cloud patterned fabric draped across the ceiling.  He couldn't tell if Bill had broken his finger, just that Stan had likely tackled him to stop it.  
  
He was at a loss.  He couldn't leave Stan like this but, he couldn't just stand or...  Float? idly by, either.  He looked back to the speck of light, wondering if he could get into Bill's mind, if maybe he'd see something useful or if maybe Bill wouldn't want him there and would relinquish his possession just to prevent-  _Wait!  
  
The other night...  I'm sure my choice to warn Wax Larry King about Bill overpowered his control!  
  
_ Even if Bill had simply let him do it and it only felt like he'd regained agency over his own body, he had to try.  Besides, if he did look into the demon's mind and see something he didn't want him to, his own life was no longer the only one at risk.

  
**** 

  
"If you think I'm going to stand by and let you hurt my brother again, you're an ignoramus!" Stan roared, hurtling toward Ford's body and sending him reeling into the padded floor.  "Sorry Ford.  I've done things your way for years and never liked it.  Now I got some ideas of my own!"  
  
Bill's smile stretched Ford's mouth to its limit as he laughed.  "You're an ignoramus if you thought I wanted you to 'stand by'.  This is much better.  Now you're the one hurting him!"  
  
With a snort, Stan grabbed Ford's flailing wrists, pinning them down, looking first to the pinkie Bill had bent back and taking half a moment of relief in finding no blood, no visible bone, and no misshapen appearance.  If it  _was_  broken again, it wasn't as bad as he'd seen it before.    
  
With that, he wanted to verbally defend himself, to claim that tackling Ford down to a padded floor wasn't nearly as bad the injuries he'd seen Bill inflict, but he wasn't here to be distracted by arguments clearly meant to do just that.  He needed to wrap this up as quickly as he could.  Though Bill squirmed below him, bucking Ford's chest and limbs against his weight, he managed to shift his arms, pinning both of Ford's wrists in one hand above his head and reaching to his own pocket with his other hand.  
  
Bill's thrashing mellowed for a moment as he watched Stan pull a set of restraints made of canvas webbing and lined in fleece from his pants pocket.  "What you just carry those with you all the time?"  
  
Stan opened his mouth, but, rather than answer, he bit down on one of the straps, adjusting it to fit over Ford's wrists.  
  
Indignant at the lack of banter, Bill prattled on, "I'd say that's clever but I think you're forgetting something."  
  
Again, Stan didn't offer him the satisfaction of a reply or even a glance at the unnatural smile he already knew was stretching his brother's face.  Instead, with the restraints ready, he whipped his hand forward, aiming for Ford's pinned wrists.  
  
Before he could slip one strap around them, Ford's legs jerked out from under him and pair of feet knocked the wind out of him, colliding with his gut and thrusting him backwards.  Ford's hands thrashed again, one knocking, or perhaps purposely pulling, Stan's glasses from his face and sending them flying into the corner where the bathroom wall met the back one.  The other clutched the restraints, tearing them from his hand as his back hit the floor, his head crashing down near the bars.  
  
Bill rocked Ford's body forward, using the momentum to gain his footing, and loomed over a momentarily dazed Stan.  Twirling the restraints in one hand, he taunted, "Fordsy spends a lot of time kicking the wall."  With his echoing, grating laugh, he tossed the restraints through the bars with enough force that when they hit Philly, the buckles tore off two leaves, left an oblong hole in a third, and seemed to knock out the grow light as its timer shut it off for the night.  
  
The demon's tone radiated smugness and Stan imagined he must be puffing out Ford's chest in a prideful pose that was over the top for even his brother's younger days when he'd gushed about multidimensional theories, or corrected "they was" to "they were".  As if fueled by pure defiance, Stan leapt back to his feet, unable to resist spouting a reply this time.  "Heh," he said with a wry upturn of his lips, "Funny that you think I forgot that."  
  
He withheld the part where he did underestimate the strength his brother had built up in his legs from it, or maybe overestimated the effectiveness of his own boxing routine.  Either way, he cursed himself for the misjudgment.  He'd have to remedy that if he could salvage anything from this...  He'd called it a plan, hadn't he.  Figures it was more like betting his life on a game he'd rigged but with no guarantee that the rigging would work.  
  
_This is no time for stupid self-doubt,_  he thought, trying to push it aside as his feet spread into a fighting stance.  He poised his arms, ready to both shield and attack, but, without his glasses, his brother appeared as little more than a blur with Bill's laugh spewing from it.  "A blur is good enough," he thought, diving at it and taking it to the ground, unsure what his next move was.  He couldn't knock him out.  Bill would still have control and-  
  
"What the Hell?!"  Stan nearly leapt back, almost lost his grip on his brother's limbs, his heart sinking as he squinted for a better view of his face.  His vision may have been fuzzy but he could still make out a stream of red leaking from Ford's relatively good eye.  
  
"Oh yeah, guess Fordsy didn't bother to tell you about that yet, did he?  Kept claiming he wanted you to have more time with the kids before having to worry about him.  How kind of him to keep that from you so it could distract you now!"  
  
Bill took full advantage, locking his host body's legs around Stan's and toppling him over.  
  
Stan tried fight it, tried to wring himself free, to jump up and counter the attack, but the demon rolled on top of him, pinning his legs with his own and wringing his neck.  Stan clawed at his brother's arms, grabbing fist-fulls of his sweater as the pressure increased, cutting off his breath.  
  
"Fordsy also punches the wall a lot, mostly pretending it's me!" Bill added, grinning wide, his grip tightening as he lowered his head to let the blood, oozing from his glowing eye, pool in the lens of Ford's glasses and drip down onto Stan's cheek.  
  
Dizziness set in and the strength drained from his limbs until he barely clung at the soft knit encircling his brother's arms.  
  
_No...  I can't let Ford be right about this!  I can't be a screw up again!  I'm...  I'm sorry Ford, I just wanted to try to help you._  
  
"Ford...  Please," he squeezed out, in barely a squeak.  
  
For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was losing his grip on life itself or if the pressure had, by some miracle, physically eased up.  It didn't matter to his lungs as he instinctively sucked in whatever air he could manage.  It  _did_  feel like a miracle when the weight lifted from him and his brother's body bolted away, folding itself into the corner between the bathroom and back wall.  
  
Stan managed to sit up, the world spinning and blurry.  Before he could gather himself together enough to stand, he felt something light land in his lap.  His glasses.  With shaking hands, he replaced them on his face, focusing on the corner to find Ford huddled in on himself, holding his knees to his chest.  His eye was clenched closed and dripping in blood, the wide, round eye on his patch combined with the striped shadows from the cell's bars made him look like a terrified rabbit in the woods.   
  
"I cant..." he huffed, "keep this up.  Do something!"  
  
"F-ford?" Stan wasn't sure how the word threaded itself through his surely bruised throat.  "Did you just-?"  
  
"H-hurry!" his voice strained as he tightened his grip on his knees, his face scrunching with his mental exertion.  
  
Either Ford was somehow holding Bill back or Bill was toying with them.  Stan refused to entertain the third option; that Bill  _had_  succeeded in strangling him to death and this was some strange afterlife vision.  No.  He had to do as Ford said.  Something.  Anything.  He scanned the room as if begging it for any ideas, briefly debating if he could scale the bars and manage to tear some of the fabric from the ceiling.

 _Key, get the key- no.  Can't turn my back on him that long.  Throw him in the bathroom and...  No.  The door doesn't lock and I can't even block it from this side...  
_  
With his heart fluttering against his ribs, breath surging in ragged pants, his gaze darted from the pile of pillows to Ford to the padded wall to-  _wait!_  His sight fell on Ford again and he realized his brother's arms, still clutching his legs, were bare and his curls stood up in a tousled mess.  He must have still had a hold on Ford's sleeves when he'd jumped away.  He'd actually wriggled out of his own sweater to put some distance between them and there it was, draped across the floor.  
  
He snatched it up, turning the tightly knit but fairly thin fabric until he held one sleeve in each hand.  
  
"I need you to let go of your legs," Stan instructed "I'm gonna try to tie this around your ankles and wrists but I need your help."  
  
Ford trembled, not from fear, though, if he was being honest, there was likely some amount of it underlying the sheer amount of his own will it took to persuade his limbs to obey.  It was as if he was the captain of a spaceship, like in the Space Quest shows he and Stan used to watch, fighting to release it from the grasp of a villain at the wheel who was forcing it to fly into a galactic mine field.  It took all of his mental strength to suppress Bill's voice, to free himself from his control, but, he managed to uncurl his legs and lean forward enough that his wrists were in close proximity to his ankles.  
  
Stan wrapped the bulkiest part of the sweater around Ford's ankle, pulling it tight and tying a knot before wrapping it around the other.  He reached for Ford's right wrist, using one of the sweater's arms to tie a knot around it as it shook.  Ford's limbs were more tense than he thought humanly possible as he wrapped the other sweater arm around his left wrist and tied another knot.  Just as he tied a last knot around all four limbs, he felt them slacken.  
  
"Oh shi-" before he could finish his curse and as he was already backing away, Ford's limbs jerked, all four lifting and crashing into the side of his head, slamming it against the padded wall.

  
  
****  
  
  
"We're here, live from the basement heating vent, with special guest Bill Cipher who seems to be having some trouble untangling himself from a sweater." the voice from the vent taunted as Bill chewed at the knot binding Ford's limbs.  "How long have you been trying to free yourself, now?  Two?  Three hours?  It looks like having limbs is making this more difficult for you in a few different wa-"  
  
"Can it!" he snarled, glaring up at the vent with a narrowed, glowing eye.  Fuming, he nodded to a presumably unconscious Stan and joked, if only to lighten his own mood, "Guess I have to give you credit.  These  _are_  some quality knots, considering what you had to work with."  It was true.  Every time he tried to tug his limbs free, the knots seemed to tighten around them.  
  
It didn't take long, though, for his complaints to return, garbled as he went back to gnawing on the knots.  The wax head had a point.  It wouldn't be that difficult if he didn't have to contend with stretching the man's neck between four awkwardly folded limbs just to lose his grip on the knot again.  "Yeesh, times like this I almost wish I hadn't knocked out so many of your teeth.  Oh well, guess fighting with this just mean's you're gonna be pretty sore after this mess," he added, rocking forward on the padded floor and finally loosening the knot at his left wrist enough to untie it.  With a free hand, the second knot was only mildly frustrating.  "I wonder if that pain is a dislocated shoulder?" he teased, untying the last two knots with little difficulty.  "Nah.  Feels like it's just several pulled muscles."  He flexed them, sending a jolt of pain through the man's body as if to make his point. "Too bad you can't feel this right now.  It's delightful," he continued, frowning as he realized only the wax head, cringing behind the vent, could hear him.  Ford had passed out - served him right for trying to break free from his control - and Stan was crumpled on the floor by the bathroom wall.  
  
He nearly growled at the thought of a simpleton meat bag managing to ward him off.  It had only happened once before with a monk whom he'd thrown off a cliff in a tantrum over this very thing.  Too hasty.  His portal worked a few seconds longer than the one the Egyptians built before collapsing into smoldering ash.  He probably could have still used him to try again.  
  
"Then again," Bill chuckled, "I suppose it wasn't a huge loss.  After all, he didn't have the alien parts you stumbled onto, Fordsy, or the engineering genius of your weird bundle of nerves friend."  
  
The wax head leaned forward, as if offering a mic to his guest star to record what seemed to be a story he'd started telling from its middle.  
  
With an exaggerated shivering sound Bill mumbled, "That guy had a top notch brain in his head but I think he was a bit too smart.  Good thing we drove him to turn his mind to mush, right?"  He would have elbowed Ford in the side if he had his own physical form.  Instead, he shook Ford's head and added, "But you?  Ha!  I knew you were gullible but 'from now until the end of time?'  Your words, not mine?!  Even I didn't think you were  _that_  dumb.  That desperate!  Now  _those_  are qualities I like in a guy.  A good puppet is hard to come by so if you think you got any hope of getting stronger, I'll still be hundreds of times stronger than that."  
  
"That's quite a...  Um...  Part of a story, Mr. Cipher.  Tell me, who is the bundle of nerves friend and what is the significance of the alien par-"  
  
"No one's talking to you, you...  Semi-sentient crayon!"  With the burn of sore muscles, Bill lifted Ford's body, until it seemed to loom over Stan, sprawled on his side with a trail of dried blood leading from his nose to the padded floor below his head.  "So.  What should we do with this brother of yours now?  Don't suppose you had a spare key on you, huh?" he questioned, nudging Stan's body with his toe and noticing that it seemed to still be breathing.  He leaned forward and rolled the man from side to side, checking every pocket and finding only a used handkerchief, his pager, and a wad of human currency that didn't even have his image on a single...  Well, at least they referred to the greenish papers by his name.  
  
"What exactly was your plan, genius?" Bill questioned, tossing the items through the bars.  "Even if you restrained ol' Fordsy here, how did you think you were gonna get out?  Did you not mean to drop your keys?  Did you not want the door to close?  Are you expecting back-up?  You got someone who's gonna bust in here and try to save you?  That doctor lady gonna show up or something?  What are you playing at?!  I'm tired of your games, of you keeping my puppet locked up!"  
  
He lifted Ford's leg, ready to kick the unconscious body, "I should put you out of our misery right now you useless-!"  
  
"No!"  Ford's voice cut through Bill's, his leg appearing to still mid-swing as if someone had reached out and grabbed it.  He'd drifted back into consciousness, locked in the depths of his own mind, and had focused every modicum of energy he could gather on catching a glimpse of the outside world.  He had to know, had to see for himself if Stan had been hurt, if he'd gotten away, or what Bill had made his own body do.  At first, the image had faded in and out and the sounds had stuttered unintelligibly but he'd heard that last threat clearly enough that it sliced through his soul.  He fought to free own leg from the demon's control but it was as if it was caught in a deadly current and all he could do was struggle to stop it from being swept away.  
  
He'd gained enough freedom before to move his whole body, even with Bill refusing to relent, but it had taken everything out of him and he could feel what little he'd recovered draining away fast from trying stop just one of his limbs until-  
  
His leg fell limp, his foot resting against the padded floor in agreement with his own will for it.  
  
"No?" Bill repeated, his tone overflowing with sarcasm.  "Why should I stop?  Give me one good reason why I shouldn't-  Wait..." he trailed off, tapping Ford's chin.  "Maybe you're right.  This is too easy, isn't it?  Too simple and painless to kill him while he can't even feel it, while you're barely with it enough to even know what's going on out here...  Maybe you have a good point.  There are, after all, far worse things than death."  
  
"That's not what I-!"  
  
"Shh shh shh, I got it all under control.  We just need to get that key and get ourselves out of here.  Then we'll have some real fun!"  
  
"Under control...  We'll see..." Ford thought, his fingers clenching under his own will before giving in to Bill's command to reach for the bars.  
  
With his eye on the pile of keys and rings centered in a patch of hardwood where a hole had been torn in the carpet, Bill knelt at the bars and reached through, his fingers stretched to their limit but still not enough to even touch the closest key.  He laid down and turned, squeezing as much of Ford's shoulder through as he could, still unable to reach.  Grunting, he tried again and again, switched arms and stretched for it over and over with no luck.  He even grabbed a pillow and tried to flop it over the key pile and drag it closer but it barely even jingled, as if its own weight had glued it to the floor.  
  
Through his stream of cursing, neither he nor Ford heard the change in Stan's breathing nor the shift of his body as he sat up.  
  
Stan wanted to groan.  He wanted to curse twice as loud as the string blurting out of Ford's mouth in Bill's voice.

It felt as though the verbal flood entered his ears and beat against his head from the inside but he could at least use it as a cover for now.  He needed as much stealth on his side as he could get.  Everything hurt.  His head spun, his left eye was nearly swollen shut and he imagined the surrounding skin was probably darkening into an angry mess.  His nose throbbed where his glasses had slammed against it under the force of Ford's limbs and knew without needing to check that the skin below was caked in dried and flaking blood.  
  
He reached for his glasses only to find them twisted out of shape.  As he bent the left arm back into something close to the right shape, he considered himself lucky his eye was merely swollen and he hadn't come closer to being a mirror image of his twin.  With Bill still preoccupied by reaching for his keys, he granted himself a moment to breathe and steady himself for his next move.  In his own mind, he laughed to himself as he watched Bill switch positions, stretching Ford's leg through the bars only to have it get stuck just past his knee, giving him less length to work with than his arms.  
  
Despite little improvement on the state of his body or the swirling of the world around him, Stan set to work unbuttoning his shirt, wincing as the collar rubbed against his bruised neck.  He shrugged the white button-down off of his shoulders, watching the demon twist and turn, trying to release Ford's leg from between the bars.  He held a cuff in each hand, whipping the shirt's body around itself until it resembled an awkward rope.  Carefully, he reached for the wadded up sweater, twirling it into the same rope-like configuration, and tucked its center into the elastic waistband of his pants.  Finally, he lifted himself to his knees but, as he stood, they cracked.  
  
Bill's struggle paused, his hands lowering from the bars as he whipped Ford's head around to investigate the sound.  
  
Stan charged at him, wrapping the shirt around his arms, binding them to his sides, his leg still caught between the bars as he flailed for freedom.  
  
Ford's arms wiggled and bucked against Stan's grip, clutching at the white cloth until it turned into a battle of tug of war.  
  
From inside his mind, Ford cheered for Stan while gathering his own strength in hopes of freeing his body from Bill's grasp again.  He tried.  He reached out for the vision of Stan, his face puffy and bloodied, turning red as he pulled at the shirt that stretched between them, but it felt like the mental equivalent of trying to lift his arm after Bill had forced him through hours of calisthenics on his birthday.  
  
"No!"  His scream was lost to the depths of his mind as he saw the shirt slipping through Stan's fingers.  
  
With his head still spinning, Stan lost his grip and teetered backwards.  If it wasn't for the bathroom wall, he would have lost his balance completely and landed on his rear.  He didn't even want to think what a jolt like that would do to his head, or his back, for that matter.  
  
Bill wadded up his shirt like a cheap tissue and wiped the blood, both dried and fresh, from Ford's face.  With a swing of his hand, it sailed through the air outside the bars, unraveling and draping over the storage chest.    
  
Stan took a shaky step back, a combination of exhaustion, delirium, and shock freezing him to the spot as Bill tugged Ford's leg free from the bars.  
  
"No.  no no no, Stanley!  Run, do something!" Ford shouted, willing any of those words to make it to his mouth but none materialized in the physical world.  
  
Wincing as pain shot through his head, Stan's hand slipped and he nearly fell to the side, stumbling in front of the bathroom door.  Regaining his footing, he did the only thing he could think to do, he pushed the door open and ran inside, pressing his back to it as if his weakened body could somehow brace it.  
  
He waited, listened for any sound that wasn't his own haggard breathing, any pounding that wasn't his own heart, any sign that Bill was coming after him but nothing happened.  Sweat ran cold down his neck and soaked his undershirt between himself and the door.  He wished the door had a window, a keyhole, anything he could peek through but he'd never felt the need to install anything like that before.  He wished he could reach the sink, splash some cold water on his face, or maybe dunk his whole head in.  For a moment, he considered bracing the door with one foot just to get a drink and rinse the tang of blood from his mouth.  Finally catching his breath, he braced himself and risked cracking the door open for a peek.  
  
Bill paced the length of the barred wall, keeping his eye on the mound of keys and, as Stan realized by the sudden dash toward him, apparently also on the bathroom door.  
  
He slammed it shut and braced himself against it again, expecting pounding, charging, anything to break into the bathroom but still, nothing happened.  Bill was waiting for him to come out or maybe setting some sort of trap, lulling him into a sense of security so he would be distracted by using the toilet (he suddenly realized just how badly he needed it) or washing the blood from his face.  But how would he know?  If Stan couldn't see out, Bill couldn't see in, right?  At least not with Ford's eye.  
  
"Well, I'm not waiting around," Stan thought, pulling off his pants and wishing it was for the sake of using that toilet.  But no, he had to try to restrain Bill one more time and if it worked, he'd be free to take a shower and dunk his whole head in ice water upstairs if he pleased.  "Third time's the charm, right?  This time, I tie him to the bars so he can't knock me out again," he told himself, suddenly wondering how and why he was even still alive and that...  That was when he hit the familiar point where all he could do was laugh.  "I've played strip poker plenty of times," he joked to himself," but this is the first time I've ever played strip fight for my life against a demon who wants to use my brother's body in his plan to bring on an apocalypse."  
  
Clad in his underwear with his pants draped over his arm, he scanned the bathroom, wondering if it could supply him with anything of additional use.  His gaze paused on the towels, hanging over the shower curtain's bar and an idea struck him.  He edged forward, and, keeping an eye on the door, unfastened the curtain's plastic rings, pulling down just the outer curtain, a cotton one with the silhouette of a tall ship against a sunset printed on it.  With the curtain in hand, he crept back to the door and eased it open to peek through again, ready to snap it shut if needed.  
  
Bill, however, had turned his attention back to the pile of keys, fruitlessly reaching for it, his fingers coming within inches of it at his most outstretched point.  
  
Ford took the opportunity to rest, using as little energy as he could to hold onto his window to the world.  He considered, again, venturing into Bill's mind but, he couldn't be sure the demon wouldn't reach the pile of keys or decide to go after Stanley again.  If he went into Bill's mind now, there was a chance the whole world could suffer.  No.  He needed to stay vigilant, to be ready to at least try to stop him.  
  
Bill withdrew Ford's arm from between the bars and tried pushing his leg through again only to get it stuck in the same spot as before, right above the knee.  Just as he turned to check the bathroom door again, Stan took his chance and pounced.  
  
With the shower curtain spread open between his hands and his pants and Ford's sweater draped over his arm, he jumped at Bill, flapping the curtain over his head and tugging it tight around him.  His back ached in his bent over stance, pain searing through his arms as he tried to maintain his grip on fabric surrounding the wriggling form.  If he was losing strength holding on with both arms, how could he hold on with one in order to tie him to the bars with the other?  Did he need to retreat again and find some way to barricade the bathroom door until he could rest?  
  
Bill squirmed inside the curtain, swaying in every direction, moving in any way he could to try to release either his arms from the tangle of cloth or his his leg from between the bars.  
  
"Under control, huh?"  
  
Bill heard that thought and the ominous tone in which Ford thought it.  He knew it from the way the demon's movements faltered.  Stan had almost restrained him and gotten himself away earlier.  If he could hold Bill off long enough, maybe this time, Stan would succeed.  
  
Concentrating on his...  Well he couldn't exactly call it a view of the outside world.  More like the inside of a shower curtain.  Regardless, Ford reached out for it.  He couldn't explain what, exactly, he was doing but, if his body was analogous to a science fiction space ship with Bill at the wheel, then he'd given up trying to take the wheel back directly and managed to cross some wires to steer things his own way instead.  The only problem was, the mental strain was akin to the physical exertion of climbing to great heights and dangling there while trying to precisely touch two delicate wires together - draining, impossible to maintain, and required recovery before attempting it again.  
  
Stan, eyeing the bathroom door and preparing to retreat, felt Ford's body freeze.  His heart raced as he wondered what that meant.  Was Bill readying some sort of attack?  Did he, by some miracle, give up and leave?  Did Ford...?  
  
"F-Ford?" he questioned aloud.  
  
"Hurry."  
  
Ford's voice.  Not Bill's.  Stan could barely think, barely work out what he'd planned to do, what he  _needed_  to do.  
  
_Hurry.  Pants.  Sweater.  Right._  
  
He reached under the curtain and wrapped one of the pant legs around his wrist, tying a tight triple knot.  Still grasping the curtain around Ford, just in case, he threaded the pair of pants through the bars, behind four, then back in again.  "Ford," he said, his voice raspy against his bruised throat, "If this doesn't work, I'm sorry.  And I lo-"  
  
"Save...  Save the sentiment," Ford interrupted, sucking in sharp breaths every few words, "and just tell me you have a plan!"  
  
"I do!  I really do!" he answered, pulling off the curtain and reaching for his other wrist.  He tied the other pant leg around it, successfully stretching his arms apart, his leg still caught between the bars.  
  
"Good.  Because I-"  
  
"I'm back!" Bill taunted, wiggling Ford's wrists and tugging at his leg, biting in Stan's direction as if he meant to attack if he came too close.  
  
"Yeah.  Figured as much," Stan said, rolling up Ford's sweater like a rope and positioning himself behind him.  He spread his arms, the sweater stretched between them and bent down, lowering it between Ford and the bars then drawing it back and wrapping it around his head, covering his mouth.  
  
Dizziness hit Stan again as he lifted himself upright.  He turned, his back pressed against the bars beside the mostly immobilized demon.  He sucked in a deep breath, letting the stars clear from his vision before lifting his foot to pull off his sock.  
  
"You know, Bill," he said, mostly to give himself another moment to catch his breath, "You.  You're still a pain in the ass, but," Stan's tone shifted, settling somewhere between a growl and a wry laugh, "You were wrong.  I forgot nothing.  Ford does kick the wall a lot.  That's why he's got too much muscle for his legs to fit between these bars.  But me?  I've always been more of a boxer, and beer kinda guy, ya know," he added, motioning to his arms and patting his gut.  "And ya know, I been meaning to start taking daily walks since 1992 but damn if my chair ain't too comfy to neglect," he continued, nodding down to his stick-thin legs.  
  
With that, he slid to the floor, relying heavily on the bars for stability.  He stretched his leg through with ease and, as if he'd done this a thousand times before, snagged one of the key rings between his toes.  
  
He staggered back to his feet, gripping the bars to keep himself upright and unlocked the cell.  He stumbled out, tipping from side to side like he'd had a few too many of those beers he'd mentioned, and locked the door behind.    
  
Bill still thrashed around in the cell, grumbling unintelligibly behind the makeshift gag.  Stan stretched, his back cracking, and flexed his knees, relying on the bars to keep the world from swirling around him.  Once he felt steady enough on his feet, he hobbled to the storage chest and found the set of proper medical restraints.  He couldn't just leave Ford like that, especially if Bill was going to stick around.  
  
He fastened the first restraint with ease before untying the pant leg from Ford's right wrist.  Keeping it taut against the bars and Bill's struggling, he reached for the end nearest Ford's left wrist and grabbed it.  Bar by bar, he guided Ford's left wrist closer to the right, hoping to give him more comfort and, possibly, the ability to lie down.  He retied the loose end of the pants to the nearest bar, holding his wrist temporarily until he could latch the other padded restraint around it.  
  
Finally, he untied his wrinkled and probably permanently warped pants and put them back on.  He lifted his shirt, frowning at the red stains smudged across it, his stomach turning cartwheels as he considered their source.  As he worked his arms into its sleeves, he looked back to Ford, finding him slumped against the bars, his eye still bleeding.  He risked reaching in and untied the sweater, wincing as memories of Bill biting down on his arm looped through his mind but, Ford's body didn't move.  At least, Stan figured, he'd be able to breathe easier without the stifling sweater wrapped around his face.  
  
Stan hated seeing him like this.  Hated that he'd tried to help only to make things arguably worse.  He hated himself and his dumb ideas. But mostly he hated Bill.  Did he leave?  Or was he still trashing things somewhere in Ford's mind?    
  
He wanted to stay, wanted to make sure Ford was safe, wanted to be there when he awoke, to talk him about everything that had happened, about his bleeding eye and how he'd somehow freed himself from Bill's possession and how sorry he was for screwing up but, for now, he knew he had to get back upstairs.  According to the clock, it was after one am.  Wednesday was over and he hadn't checked in with Dr. Braum.  
  
  
****  
  
  
"Guess I may as well do what I came here for in the first place," Bill grumbled to himself as he floated in the center of Ford's mindscape.  "Not much else to do if your idiot brother is just gonna leave you tied up."  
  
He scanned the shelves labeled anomalies, research, and Gravity Falls until he found a pair of books titled  _Enchanted Forest volumes one and two_.  With a flick of his wrist, the set floated to him, their matched covers in opposite states of wear.  The first volume, one mostly about gnomes, fairies, and the forest police force, was in fairly good shape.  He glanced through it, not bothering to waste much time on it.  The second volume, however, was missing so many pages that its spine had lost its structure and folded in on itself.  He flipped through it attentively, finding most of what he'd previously burned to a crisp had stayed that way.  Three pages, though, had managed to reform from the ash.  
  
Their edges were still singed but enough of information was visible on the first page to make out an image of Ford arm wrestling a unicorn paired with an embellished account of his battle.  The second page detailed a self-depreciating tale of him losing.  Badly.  The third was a little ambiguous, rather like it was written by someone who'd been drugged.  Even with its sloppy handwriting and confusing sentences, Bill could tell it was the story of how Ford ended up stumbling into a dragogre's garden with a broken arm and how they'd bonded over unicorns being frustrating.  
  
With a snap of his fingers, the pages burned.  
  
He flipped through the remainder of the book, scanning for any more mention of the, as Ford put it, jerks with horns and magic hair.  
  
"'Waterberries - strawberries the size of-' nope don't care," he mumbled, "'Pumpkids - pumpkins that sound like baby goats' nope.  'Ghostly Peppers - Periwinkle's experimental crop, no success yet.'  Boring.  Next."  He read snippets from the remaining pages aloud until he was finally satisfied no other reference to unicorns existed.  With a flick of his wrist, both books returned to their shelf.  
  
"Too bad things didn't work out tonigh," he grumbled.  "Can't blame me for trying, though, right?" he added, glancing down to the desk and a stack of scribbled notes on "freeing my body from Bill."  
  
His triangular form burned red, flames flaring around his hands as he raised them.  He let out a guttural yell, fists flinging balls of flame at the desk, setting the whole top ablaze.  He didn't care that Stan could just remind Ford of the memory the next time they talked.  He didn't care that the ashes would reassemble again whether he liked it or not.  At least, for now, he could take out some frustration.  He turned to the rest of the room, lifting his hand again, readying it to set the whole place aflame.  
  
_No...  Not yet.  It's the same as with your brother, Fordsy.  Too easy.  Even if you prove useless, there are worse things than demolishing your mind._  
  
  
****  
  
"Hey," the head of Wax Larry King spoke up as he noticed Ford shift his arms.  "Are you...  Are you going to be alright?"  
  
"'M fine," Ford moaned, wishing he hadn't woken up and realizing more with each movement how much of a lie "fine" was.  Everything hurt.  Again.  He was restrained.  Again.  His eye burned and dried blood stained his cheek.  Again.  The only thing notably different was, well, a note.  Written in navy blue crayon, it was taped to the floorboards exposed by a hole Stan had claimed was torn into the rug when he and Lottie had brought him back home after his surgery.  
  
Ford squinted to see it, even though the letters were fairly large.  
  
_Sorry to leave.  
Back soon.  
We need to talk.   
  
~Stan  _  
  
"Damn right we need to talk."  
  
  
****  
  
Stan rushed upstairs, wondering what to expect.  
  
_Did Dr. Braum call?  Did Soos answer?  Did he already find my files?  Did he already know- No.  He'd have shown up in the basement by now if he did.  So what then?_  
  
Stan eased the vending machine open, peeked outside, and found the gift shop cast only in moonlight, shimmering through the windows.  He risked a bit more, opening it just enough to step out from behind and letting out a sigh of relief when he found no one there.  Somewhere upstairs he could hear bursts of laughter and high-pitched, excited screeches from Mabel and her friends.  
  
_Good.  The kids are alright._  
  
Bracing his back with one hand, he hobbled to the living room, hissing with each step down the stairs.  The room was quiet aside from the trickle of water from the fish tank's filter and the sound of...  Someone breathing?  He nearly gasped aloud, his heart skipping a beat as he noticed Soos slumped down in his chair, a blanket crumpled at his feet.  
  
He held his breath, leaning over to get a closer look.  In the blue light from the tank, he could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, his closed eyes, and the bit of drool dripping down his chin and onto his hat, clutched like a teddy bear between his arms.  He let out his breath, wiping his forehead and groaning as his hand brushed too close to his swollen eye.  Despite nearly falling over in the process, he bent down, picked up the blanket, and draped it over his employee who was currently sleeping on the job.    
  
"What?" he whispered, catching a glimpse of the axolotl swimming to the front of the tank and raising an arm, almost like he was reaching out to him.  "Heh.  Yeah.  Rough night," he answered, as if the little creature had asked.  Maybe he did.  Or maybe he had a concussion.  
  
Shaking his head, he waved at the axolotl and sidestepped his way past Soos.  His knees ached with every step down the hall but finally, he made it to his office.  He opened the door to find it dark aside from a red light, blinking on the answering machine like it was angry he'd neglected it.  
  
Sure enough, there were three messages from Dr. Braum.  The first, recorded around ten pm, was pleasant, asking if everything was alright and requesting a call back.  The second, recorded just before midnight, sounded worried, asked where he was, if she should drive out there, and "please, call me back!"  The third recorded forty-five minutes ago, was firm, instructing him she was on her way and would arrive in an hour or slightly less.  
  
"Great..." Stan grumbled sarcastically.  "Wait, no.  Maybe it is good," he added, "I mean, I just thought an axolotl asked me a question.  I probably need a doctor right now.  And Ford definitely does," he added, looking down at the dark splotches on his shirt, "I gotta get outside and meet her so she doesn't beat down the door or something."  
  
  
****    
  
"Ah.  Ooh.  Eee.  Ack.  Ow!"  Stan couldn't help the string of grunts as he stepped down the back porch's stairs but, part of him was glad he didn't just fall down them into a lump of aches and bruises.  The sweat, still drenching his hair and undershirt, felt like ice against his skin in the cool nighgt breeze but he pressed forward, his knees cracking so loud it sent three gnomes bolting out from behind the trash can as he rounded the side of the shack.  
  
He squinted toward the driveway finding it cast in moonlight with no sign of headlights.  Maybe if he walked out there, he could catch her before the sound of her car piqued the kids' attention.  Not that he thought it would, given the chatter and laughter practically rattling the yellow, triangular window to the attic.  
  
"Ugh.  Gotta get rid of those windows someday," Stan thought, swearing he saw Bill's eye wink at him from the center of the triangle.  He shook his head and lifted his leg to take another step but a light snore froze him to the spot sending a tremor through him.  "What the?" he grumbled, scanning the line of trees at the edge of the shack's clearing.  Between the roots of a towering pine, his grandnephew was curled up asleep with his hat pulled over his face and his leg sticking out, spotted in dried blood.  
  
"What the Hell!  Dipper?!" he yelled, hobbling toward him.  
  
"Grunkle Stan?" he answered in a half yawn, blinking and looking up to him.  His eyes flew wide open and he jumped up, jaw agape as he took in the sight of his Grunkle.  Bloodied shirt...  Black eye...  Swollen nose...  And he was definitely hunched forward more than usual.  "What happened to you?"  
  
"I could ask the same about you," Stan said, his voice still hoarse as it grated through his throat.  He gestured to the boy's leg and the dried blood crusted around what appeared to be a bite mark.  "Looks like a lawn mower ran over your leg!"  
  
"It was a wolf," he answered flatly, crossing his arms and turning away.  
  
"Why are you even out here, kid?"  Stan asked, stepping forward and placing a hand on his shoulder.  
  
He pulled away and whipped around, built up frustration spilling out, "I couldn't stand the noise Mabel and her friends were making.  I'm just...  I'm tired of doing everything she wants to do and her ruining things for me!"  
  
"And you thought sleeping outside with an open wound was better?  Bit over the top, don't you think?" he asked, kneeling with a groan to inspect Dipper's leg.  
  
"I- maybe.  I don't know I was tired and I'm just..." Dipper stepped back defensively his hand cutting the air as he admitted, "I'm tired of you always taking Mabel's side on things!"  
  
"Wait, what?"  
  
"Letting her keep partying all night after that party earlier this summer, letting her have her friends sleep over and take over our room, and...  And you broke into the pool to help her steal things without even asking me if I'd help!  I lost my job!  And..." his tone softened as he turned away, staring down at the hat clutched between his hands.  "And I would have helped...  If you'd bothered to ask."  
  
"Oh," he answered, letting out a long breath.  "Guess I didn't realize you felt that way..."  
  
Dipper replaced his hat on his head and crossed his arms, pulling away again as Stan's hand rested on his shoulder.  
  
"Look," Stan sighed, "Why don't we get inside.  I got a sleeping bag you can use somewhere INSIDE the house tonight and we'll talk to your sister about being quieter in the morning." He tried to stand but barely caught himself as he fell forward, his hands braced in the gravel.  
  
"Grunkle Stan?" Dipper questioned, concern tinting his voice as he turned to face him.  "Seriously, are you alright?"  
  
"Fine.  I'm- ack!" he tipped forward again but this time, Dipper reached out and caught him.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Well, I...  I went to the dump to find that McGoogle Guy-"  
  
"McGucket?" he corrected, helping Stan up.  
  
"Yeah, him.  Anyway, I fell off a pile of car doors, bashed my head and woke up later.  I might be a bit concussed.  And probably need a tetanus shot.  And you might need several dozen shots..."  
  
"Shouldn't you go to a hospital or-" Dipper suggested, leading him back to the Shack and trying to help him up the stairs to the back porch only to have his own leg give out.  Stan grabbed his hand, pulling him back to his feet before he fell.  The two leaned on each other, taking each step slowly  
  
"I called up a doctor friend of mine.  She's gonna be here any minute," Stan explained, slumping down into the sofa with an oof.  "I'll have her look at your leg too," he added, watching Dipper climb up beside him.  "Then we're both gonna get some sleep, alright?"  
  
"Alright."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zxk F dbq lkb lc qelpb "vlr qofba" pqfzhbop xq ibxpq?
> 
> ~[ Previous end notes decoded here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
> ~This chapter was mostly written based on D20 rolls. If anyone's interested in the actual numbers and some snarky notes, [ I'll leave them here for a while ](https://sta.sh/024glra1vcju)
> 
> ~Yeeeeaaahhh. That might be a nod to Galaxy Quest up there ;)
> 
> ~Stan saying "Ford... Please" while Bill's using Ford's hands to strangle him is um... Ouch.


	30. I Can't Lose You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Braum keeps her end of the deal with Stan, Dipper gets some medical care and rest, Mabel gets pranked then seeks revenge, and Stan and Ford entertain an audience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Warnings - injury mention and wound care, nothing graphic  
> ~Thanks to [ zonerobotnik ](http://zonerobotnik.tumblr.com/) for letting me blather about this and helping me see some things from the reader's perspective!  
> ~[ The poll for Dipper and Mabel's parent's names is still open if anyone would still like to vote. ](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZ1qB0jZpiJsnY9kGPPNnqgb14Y4fgX3q6lP6l_32As8fb6g/viewform?usp=sf_link)  
> ~I've been pretty busy working on background art for the Deep Woods project lately so I haven't had time to add much to the notes doc but I'll get back to it soon. We're aiming for a deadline for the latest episode now and I'd really love to see it met! <3  
> ~I'm also planning to do inktober this year so I might have to take a break from updating here for a bit. Ideally, I'd prefer to keep up the regular schedule but it might not be possible. I'll post any details on delays or updates to [ my writing tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shattereddreams-gravityfallsfics) and any inktober art that turns out presentable to [ my art tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ginandshattereddreams)

Stan leaned back, sinking into the mildewy musk of the crackling couch cushion, drenched by rain and dried by the sun so many times that its originally green hue had shifted to a blotchy yellow-orange.  His eyes, or, well, at least the one that wasn't already swollen shut, slipped closed as he focused on the breeze drying the sweat from his hair.  Dizziness nearly lulled him to sleep but, despite his head throbbing at as little as the rustle of pine needles above, he listened for the sound of a car engine approaching.  
  
"Grunkle Stan?" Dipper said in barely a whisper, debating if he should try to lie down and use the couch's arm as a pillow for a while but thinking better of it thanks to the breeze ruffling through a chunk of something mossy growing between the cushions.  Maybe he hadn't lived in this town long but, from what he'd seen so far, that could just as easily be a group of tiny treasure trolls all huddled together and he didn't feel like starting some sort of war.  
  
"Yeah, kid?" Stan answered, hating that his own voice cut through his head like a hacksaw.  
  
"I didn't think doctors really did house calls like this anymore," he said with a yawn  
  
"Usually, no.  But, like I said, this is a friend of mine and she's doin' me a favor."  
  
To Stan's relief, both for the silencing of Dipper's questions and because it meant some form of physical aid was that much closer, a car engine rumbled into the Mystery Shack's clearing in the woods.  He looked up to see the headlights glowing against the trees ahead of him, increasing in intensity until the engine fell silent.  With a groan, he tried to push himself up, making it half-way before sinking back into the cushions again with a wince, his eyes squeezing shut as pain jolted through his spine and straight to his head.  When he opened them again, he saw Dipper standing on the porch in front of him, offering him a hand.  He reached out for it and felt the boy tug at his arm with more strength than he thought a figure that reminded him so much of Ford at that age could produce.  "Guess all that wood chopping is doing him some good," he thought, his lips lifting a bit in pride as the boy tugged him to his feet.  
  
Two car doors shut with simultaneous slams and the grind of gravel under speeding feet drew closer.  
  
"Mr. Pines?  Mr. Pines?!" Dr Baum shouted, panic edging her voice as she rounded the corner to the back porch.  "Oh!  Mr. Pines!  I was so worried when you didn't-"  
  
"Hey, Dr. Braum, Lottie!  How's every little thing?" Stan interrupted, waving and trying to stand upright only to nearly fall forward down the steps, "Thanks for coming on such short notice.  Sorry to get you two out of bed and all."  
  
"Get me what?" she questioned, squinting through the moonlight to find Stan and Dipper leaning on each other as they took a step closer to the stairs.  She gasped at the swelling of Stan's face and the dried blood smeared and splotched across his shirt before catching sight of a bloodied wound on the boy's left leg.  "What on earth happened to you two?" she asked, watching as Lottie clomped up the stairs and shone a light in Stan's eye, checking for any signs of Bill, just in case, "What about F-"  
  
"Well!" Stan interrupted, "The kid, here, had a run-in with a wolf," he explained, words perforated by Dipper's "Ah hey!" as Lottie bent to shine the light in his eyes.  "and I had uh..." Stan paused, rubbing his temples as he sifted through exhaustion and delirium for the memory of which lie he'd told just a few moments ago.  "I had a run in with a pile of car doors."  
  
"All clear," Lottie proclaimed, pocketing her penlight and stepping aside.  
  
"Thank you, Lottie."  Dr. Braum said with a nod, taking her cue to step up onto the porch, her footfalls silent as her lab coat billowed behind her.  
  
Dipper's eyes squeezed shut and reopened several times, trying to regain some focus on the world.  He didn't so much ask as demand to know, "What was that all about?!"

"Uh-  Well-" Dr Braum stuttered her attention drawn up from the boy's eyes to Stan by his waving hands and the shaking of his head accompanying a mouthed, "no".  He even went so far as to give the cutthroat gesture, begging her not to tell him anything about Bill or glowing eyes or his brother down in the basement.  
  
Lottie's gaze darted between her speechless boss and Stan, watching as he snapped into a nonchalant pose, arms clutched behind his back, when the boy looked up to him.  With flattened brows and a sigh of exasperation, she filled in, "Checking for head trauma."  
  
"Yes.  Right.  That.  Just checking for brain injuries." Dr. Braum added with an awkward smile, "All clear means pupils are equal and reactive."

Dipper blinked one last time, his vision finally focusing on the two guests.  The stout one, they'd called her Lottie, wore a suit and held a posture that made her look ten feet tall and stronger than an army.  The doctor, dressed in scrubs and a lab coat, had to be the tallest woman he'd seen in his life.  Between her rainbow colored hair, glimmering in the moonlight, and an amount of grace that brought to mind the elvish women from Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, he wondered if she might have come from the enchanted part of the forest.  Even when she asked Stan, "You had a run in with a what, now?" her voice sounded more like a song one would sing in a language not known to Earth.  
  
"I'll explain later," Stan said, waving it off and motioning to Dipper, "Look, I know it's more than we talked about but, you mind looking at the kid's leg?  I dunno if he needs some shots or anything."  
  
"Certainly.  Do you have some place with better light or-?"  
  
"Yeah, come on in to the kitchen," Stan said, motioning for her to follow Dipper and himself as they hobbled through the door.  "We got ice packs in the freezer there and I'd like to get one on my eye an hour ago."  
  
"That's your doctor friend?"  Dipper asked in a whisper as he and Stan helped each other make it through the darkened hallway, "And what's up with her...  Whoever that lady is that looks like she came from one of those mob movies..." Dipper's voice trailed off for a moment as he looked up to Stan, unsure in the dimness if he was giving him the parental look of "and just when have you watched any of those, young man?" or not.  Either way, he amended his statement, "Heh, you know, those ones I've never seen and only heard about."  
  
"Oh ha," Stan said, flicking on the kitchen light.  "I guess that was rude of me or something."  He let Dipper guide him to the kitchen chair and eased himself onto its seat with a pained series of sounds.  "Dipper, this is Dr. Braum," he said, motioning to the rainbow-haired and somewhat confused looking woman.    
  
She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers in a wave, her smile so awkward that it made Dipper rethink his first impression.  He watched as she turned on her heels and reached for the freezer pulling out an ice pack and handing it to Stan.  
  
"You.  Ice pack on eye now," she instructed, handing him the nearest tea towel to wrap around it.  
  
"Right," Stan answered, wrapping it once in the towel and touching it to his swollen eye with a hiss.  He took a breath and turned back to Dipper, motioning to Lottie as he added, "This is Dr. Braum's uh, medical assistant, Lottie."  
  
"Hi," Lottie offered with crossed arms and a gruff tone that only reinforced the Maffia movie imagery in his mind.  
  
"Why do you look like you're more like, I dunno, a body guard or something?" he asked, pulling out the chair across from Stan and turning it so its seat was perpendicular to the table.  He climbed onto it and lifted his leg to get a look at it in the light for himself.  It wasn't actively bleeding anymore but purple flared out from a series of small puncture wounds and dried blood flaked off of the surrounding area, drifting to the floor.  
  
"Ha ha ha," Stan's laugh was less than convincing, given the strain on his voice and the pained ow punctuating it.  "Kid's got a good imagination, right?"  He added, leaning heavily on the table to support the arm holding the ice pack to his eye.  
  
"Ha ha, yes.  Sure does," Dr. Braum agreed, kneeling in front of Dipper and coaxing him to show her his leg.  "Lottie was just... She didn't have time to change after a um-"  
  
"Summerween party.  Friend of mine had one planned and had to reschedule it for tonight," Lottie lied.  
  
Dipper raised an eyebrow, imagining a party being the last thing the stout woman would enjoy in her free time.  Then again, he was pretty focused on the kind of party that involved a lot of puffy stickers and magazine articles about boy bands at the moment and who was he, of all people, to judge who liked to dance or sing along to what may or may not be the music of an Icelandic pop group.  
  
"Hmm.  This actually doesn't look too bad," Dr. Braum said, tilting her head to look over Dipper's wound.  "Let's get it cleaned up.  Lottie, can you go back to the car and get my medical bag and the animal bite kit?"  
  
_Animal bite kit._  Stan knew from his own sketchier days what she meant by that.  He could imagine Dr. Braum likely got a lot of calls about bites from guard dogs if she was dealing with Rico's associates regularly.  Even he had to be thankful for a doctor like her taking care of a bite a lot worse than Dipper's once before.  Even now he was grateful that it meant he wouldn't have to make a trip to the emergency room and leave Ford restrained in the basement that much longer.  Bad enough he had to leave him like that at all.  He could only imagine the levels of grumpiness and yelling that awaited him down there.  And could he really blame him for it?  No.  He was already internally grumping at both himself and Ford over the events of their evening.  
  
_If he'd bothered to tell me about that eye!  But did he really free his body from Bill to save me?  How am I even still alive?  
_  
Dipper was somewhat relieved that he only needed some pain killers and two shots instead of the several dozen Stan had exaggerated about earlier.  Once his wound was cleaned, he could see that Dr. Braum was right.  It actually wasn't too bad and didn't need any stitches, just some ointment and gauze wrapped around it tightly enough to stay put but not so tight as to irritate the bruising.  She advised him to change it at least once a day for about a week and to apply an ice pack for twenty minutes before going to sleep.  
  
"Well, glad that wasn't too bad," Stan said, lowering his ice pack and leaning forward to look at the bandaged wound.  "You be alright getting the sleeping bag from the hall closet and setting up in the parlor?  It'd probably be the best room for now.  I'd offer you my chair in the living room but Soos is sawing logs there already and the ballroom's still got a lot of glass hanging around from all the mirrors Gideon broke.  Besides, with the parlor, you'll be able to sleep in a bit if you want.  I'll just make sure no one from the tour groups goes in there 'til you're up."

"Yeah, I'll be alright," Dipper said failing to suppress a yawn and sliding down from the chair.  "Are _you_  going to be alright?"  
  
"Once the doc, here, patches me up and I can get to sleep, I'll be fine," he said, ruffling Dipper's hat against his hair.  "Good night, kiddo."  
  
Dr. Braum was already leaning over Stan to check his swollen eye and bloodied nose as Dipper reached into the freezer for an ice pack.  With the pain killers kicking in, his limp was barely there as his figure faded into the darkened hallway.  Stan listened to the squeak of his sneakers and the sound of the hall closet creaking open and clicking shut with a force like an angry whisper.  He could hear the boy grumbling something about "stupid dating games!" to himself in response to a surge of laughter and squealing from upstairs.  A distant, definite, slam sounded and cut off Dipper's string of complaints about dumb giggling and romance novels.  
  
Stan let out a sigh.  
  
"So," Dr. Braum prompted, signaling for him to lift his head so she could check for any blockage in his nasal passage, "Care to tell me what really happened?"  
  
"Let's just say that I got tired of _someone's_ bullshit and tried a bright idea that turned out to be pretty dim.  I mean, I still stopped him from torturing Ford 'an all, but kinda got knocked out at one point and, I dunno, probably almost died so- ow!" Stan hissed, his eyes clenching closed, as Dr. Braum barely touched the reddened mark where his glasses had been rammed against the left side of his nose.  

"Oh yeah...  That's broken.  Minor, but still," she said, reaching into her medical bag for a nasal spray anesthetic.  "This'll help with the pain for a bit and I'm going to prescribe you some pain killers.  There's no blockage and it doesn't look misshapen but I want you to call me if you think it needs attention.  Any other injuries I should know about?  And what about your brother?  Does he look like you do right now?  Is that your blood all over your shirt or...?"  
  
"Yeah, no.  It's his but it's...  Well..."  Stan reached up to pinch his nose but thought better of it and lowered his hand.  "At some point," he explained, "his other eye started bleeding."  
  
****  
  
It took five solid minutes of effort and suppressed sounds of strain and soreness, but Ford managed to sit up, his wrists still restrained to one of the padded bars.  He leaned his side against the bars, closing his eye as he cracked his shoulders, searching for some form of relief from the ache of muscles stretching from his neck to his heels.  
  
"That was some fight you two had," the wax head commented from inside the heating vent.  "I'd say it was better than the boxing matches your brother watches.  What do you think he was trying to do there, anyway?"  
  
"I...  Don't know," Ford answered in a huff.  "I'm not even sure _I_ know what happened.  I remember warning Stan that Bill was here then...  Then somehow I could still see and hear him.  I've never been able to do that before.  I've barely been able to ward off Bill long enough to warn Stan the past few times and it always took so much effort that I'd lose my focus on whatever is going on out here.  But this time, I could still see him..."  
  
"Hold on a minute.  The first night that we talked, you warned me that Bill was here before he possessed you then you acted like you still heard everything going on a minute later."  
  
"I did?  I don't remember tha-"  A knock at the door interrupted and he allowed himself a deep breath before answering with a grouchy, "Yeah, come in."  
  
Stan eased the door open, peeking his head in with the ice pack still pressed to his eye to find Ford sitting up, his wrists still bound to the bars and his head hanging low between stiffened shoulders.  "Hey, Ford," he began in a meek tone, " I get that you probably ain't exactly happy right now and...  Welp, I'm about to make it worse."  
  
"Great," Ford said with a disgruntled snort, barely looking up enough to see the bottom half of the door, "Worse how?"  
  
Stan stepped aside, letting Dr. Braum and Lottie into the amber glow of the basement room.  
  
Unsure of whether to say good evening, because it certainly didn't seem good, or nothing at all, Dr. Braum settled for a middle ground with, "Hello, Dr. Pines."  
  
"Oh lovely," Ford griped, his head sagging further between his shoulders.  "No offence, doctor.  It's not you, it's...  Well," he trailed off, nodding to his bare arms and the restraints around his wrists.  At least he still had his undershirt.  Better than having every triangular scar and tattoo on his torso displayed for everyone to see.  
  
"None taken," she said with a shrug, kneeling a safe distance away from the bars.  "I suppose you must have guessed that Stanley told me about your eye.  I'd like to take a look at it, if you don't mind."  
  
"Fine," he snorted, shifting his legs to allow Stan and Lottie to restrain his ankles, his gaze remaining fixed on the floor.  Stan let Lottie into the cell, much like the first time the two had visited, so she could hold Ford's head still if a certain demon decided to show up again.  
  
Bill, however, didn't see fit to join them, leaving Ford silent and sullen as Dr. Braum tilted his chin up, lifted his glasses, and examined his eye.  
  
It was certainly red and irritated but otherwise, normal as far as she could tell.  
  
When Dr. Braum suggested some drops might help ease his discomfort, he shrugged and nodded, willing to at least try.  He flinched as they flooded his eye, but, at least they did exactly what she said they would.  
  
"Well, without equipment more suited to an ophthalmologist," Dr. Braum explained, backing away and replacing the cap on the eye drops, "I can't really advise if there's anything that can be done to help.  I mean, last time, you probably didn't need a doctor to tell that your eye needed to be removed but, this time, I don't have the resources to offer a course of treatment."

Ford lowered his head again, offering no other response.  
  
"You think there might be something that can be done?" Stan asked, the ice clunking around in his thawing ice pack as he let Lottie out of the cell and locked the door.  
  
"I...  Don't know," Dr. Braum admitted, backing further away to allow Stan to remove the restraints.  "It isn't exactly a medical condition causing it to bleed.  I could ask a colleague to look at it but we'd have to get him to their office somehow."  
  
"No," Ford said, his voice firm.  "Not yet, at least.  When the kids go home...  Maybe."  
  
Stan set his ice pack down on his floor pillow and knelt to unfasten the restraints around Ford's ankles.  His head hung low under a sludge of self-depreciation, his eyes focusing only on his task as he asked, "I guess, it took thirty years to get that bad last time, so waiting until September should be alright, shouldn't it?"  
  
"I can't guarantee you have thirty years again but, yeah.  It should be alright until September unless something extreme happens."  
  
"Well, uh," Stan murmured, his head still lowered as he reached for the restraints around his brother's wrists, "What about your hand, Ford?  You think Bill broke anything?"  
  
Ford shook his head but still didn't lift his attention from the padded floor below his folded legs.  
  
"Here, let me check it before you undo those," Dr. Braum offered, nudging Stan out of the way.  
  
Swiping stray strands of purple hair back behind her ear, she took Stan's place in front of Ford.  She instructed him to make a fist and move his pinkie several different ways, determining that neither moving nor touching it seemed to cause him any pain.  "Good news," she offered, "It's completely fine."  
  
"Well, at least there's that," Stan said, swapping places with the doctor again to release the remaining restraints.  "Hear that, Ford, no broken fingers this time!"  
  
"Stanley," Ford replied, finally looking up to him with a scowl, "What exactly were you trying to do?  Look at you!  You could have-" he covered his mouth, turning away and wincing at the words left unsaid.  
  
Stan interrupted, his voice rising in his defense, "I had a plan to stop Bill but it just...  Didn't work as, well...  Planned."  
  
"I get that much," Ford said, raising his hands with fingers splayed in his desperation for answers.  "But what were you thinking?  What sort of plan did you have that made you think locking yourself in here with me; with HIM was a good idea?"  
  
"I've been able to restrain you before with the bars between us," Stan explained, his voice raspier than usual as it grated through his bruised throat.  "But, I figured, I didn't wanna bust in with the keys on me or leave the door open in case restraining didn't work."  Stan reached for his ice pack, holding it to his neck this time.  He nearly yelped at the cold, wet patch of fabric under his rear as he eased himself onto his floor pillow.  "So," he continued,  "I got to thinkin, I been kicked by Bill through the bars enough that-"  
  
Ford's shoulders drooped.  His head tilted down, an ache spreading across his chest.  
  
Stan's voice faltered at the sight but he continued, "I knew the point where your legs stop fitting through so, while you were in recovery after...  At the surgery center, I measured how far my leg could fit and it turned out, it's a fair bit farther than yours."  
  
Dr. Braum and Lottie stepped back, listening to Stan finally tell the tale of a plan gone awry, and glanced at each other as if silently asking what they should be doing.  Lottie shrugged and decided to lift herself up to sit on the cedar storage chest.  Dr. Braum mirrored her shrug and leaned back against the door.  
  
"We both know how far your arms can reach," Stan said, gesturing to Ford's arms, then to his own legs, "and my leg still reached further."  Stan pointed to the patch of exposed wood in the center of the tear in the carpet and added, "I marked the spot with that hole in the carpet so I'd know where to drop the keys then practiced reaching for them so I knew I'd be able to get them and Bill wouldn't.  I just..." he paused, shrugging and sighing, his eyes purposely avoiding Ford's general direction.  "I didn't really have much of a back-up plan for if I couldn't restrain you, I guess."   
  
In a tone that could have been anything from morose to annoyed, Ford attempted to reply, "Stanley-"  
  
"I know, alright!" Stan interrupted, his fist pounding into the floor pillow, "I know it was a dumb plan!  I know I screwed up!  I just wanted to help you!"  
  
Ford wrapped one hand around the bars and replied in as calm of a voice as he could, "My fingers aren't worth-"

"I had to try!  I'm sorry alright?!  Maybe if you'd bothered to tell me about your eye," Stan snapped, pointing at the dried blood splotched across his own shirt, "so it didn't catch me off guard-"  
  
Ford let out a snort, losing his calm until his volume matched Stan's gravely yell, "You weren't supposed to be in here so it could have a chance to!"  
  
Dr. Braum looked to Lottie, thumbing over her shoulder at the door and asked, "You, uh, think we should let them have some priva-"   
  
"Nope," Lottie answered, shaking her head and settling into a cross-legged position, watching the fight escalate.  
  
"Right right.  Someone should be here to intervene if it's necessary," Dr. Braum answered, not taking her eyes off the scene unfolding before them as she sat beside Lottie on the cedar chest.  
  
"Yeah, sure.  That," Lottie agreed with a nod.  
  
"I...  Is it bad that I almost wish we had some popcorn?" Dr. Braum whispered.  
  
"Right here," Lottie said, pulling a single serving bag of CheezCorn from a pocket inside her coat.  She tore it open and reached in for a handful before offering it to her boss.  
  
"So that's it then?" Stan shouted through the throbbing of his head, "Ford's always right and Stan's an idiot.  I'm supposed to just keep standing by and watching him hurt you?!  I can't take it anymore!  I can't sit back and accept that!"  
  
"No, it's just..." Ford countered, raking his hand through his unruly hair and resting it beside his neck.  "Stanley.  My fingers aren't worth-"  
  
"I know.  They're not worth risking the world, probably the kids," Stan blathered, rolling his eyes, "Stan's just a screw up again-"  
  
"They're not worth you!" Ford blurted, grasping the bars with both hands, his eye finally meeting Stan's, "My fingers aren't worth your life, Stanley!"  
  
Stan blinked at him, his mouth hanging open but silent.  
  
"Stanley...  I...  I can't lose you," Ford said, an edge of desperation to his voice as he clutched the bars.  "I know Soos would make sure I'm fed and taken care of."  
  
Stan's shoulders drooped at the way he said that, like he was a pet that needed to be looked after while its humans were out of town.  
  
"And Dr. Braum would step in if he couldn't," Ford added, motioning to the two women who watched them with unblinking eyes as they stuffed popcorn into their mouths.    
  
They paused to wave at him with cheese-coated finger tips.  
  
"You can count on us," Dr. Braum affirmed through a mouthful.    
  
Ford shook his head and continued, "But I wouldn't have you to talk to anymore, I wouldn't have your jokes or stories or company.  I-  I was terrified.  He was going to kill you, Stanley.  He was going to use  _my_  hands,  _my_ body, to kill you.  He still wants to."  
  
Stan stared at him with one wide eye, the other narrowed and surrounded by swollen purple.  He let out a light laugh, his expression softening as he said, "Then...  then you know how I feel when I say I'm glad you're here."  
  
"I...  Yes...  I suppose so..." he admitted, his grasp on the bars easing up.  
  
"But...  you stopped him," Stan said, his posture relaxing.  "When Bill was strangling me...  Ford, that was amazing.  You actually freed your body from his control to save me!"   
  
"What?" Ford questioned, his brows knitted in confusion, "No, I...  I've never been able to-"  
  
"Wait, what?" Dr. Braum asked only to have her question ignored.  
  
"He erased that, didn't he?" Stan asked, his hands tightening into fists.  "That little shit erased it.  Of course he did, why wouldn't he?"  
  
Ford's shoulders lowered as he mourned not so much the lost memory itself, but every one Bill had taken from him, memories he couldn't remember, that he didn't even know were lost, and the reality that they were erased so frequently.  
  
"It was incredible, Ford," Stan said, attempting a cheery tone through his nearly spent voice.  "You...  You saved my life at least twice.  Probably three times 'cause I got no clue why he didn't just kill me when I was unconscious for a couple 'a hours."  
  
"I..."  Ford clenched his eye closed, his fists clutching the padded floor with the same force as he strained for any speck of the memory.  "Bill was possessing me and I took my body back from him?"  He breathed deeply, catching a mental flash of Stan's face, his expression desperate as something...  Blood, _my blood!_  splashed against his cheek while he squeezed the words "Ford Please!" through a throat constricted by six-fingered hands, pressing down upon it.  
  
"I...  I remember something, not all of it but," he paused, taking in a slow breath and resisting the urge to retreat, to back himself into the corner between the bathroom wall and the back of the cell, to curl up there and tell everyone to "just go, please" until he could sort through the thoughts bouncing off the walls in his brain so they couldn't escape unchecked.  Instead, he took another breath, trying to quell them all, but, one managed to break free.  "I wouldn't have had to save you if I wasn't the one endangering you in the first place."  
  
"Not you.  Bill," Stan insisted.  
  
Ford let out his breath, looking up to Stan with an exhausted expression.  
  
"Look," Stan said, "I told you a thousand times, it ain't your fault Bill tricked you.  We can blame people for falling for scams and tricks and traps all we want but, and this is coming from a con man, the scammers are still the ones doing the scammin..."  Stan's voice trailed off as he rubbed at his neck, a memory echoing through his head of Ford's hands wrapped around it as the words, "Ford, please" spilled past his lips.  
  
"Shit," Stan cursed to himself.  It wasn't the first time the lines between his brother and Bill had blurred.  He'd always tried to make a distinction between the two, both mentally and verbally but sometimes, things still blended together like some persistent instinct kept insisting on it.  "Ford, I...  When he was trying to strangle me, I used your name like...  Like it was you trying to...  I know you'd never!  Believe me, I know it wasn't you!"  
  
"It's...  I know," Ford said, focusing on his hands as his fingers picked at the hem of his pant leg.   "It's alright.  I understand that it's...  Even if it hadn't been Bill forcing my hands...  It wouldn't be the first time I've hurt you so..."  
  
"But I know he was messing with you back then too," Stan interrupted, leaning forward to grasp the bars and hating himself for the fear welling up at the thought of reaching through to offer his brother any form of comfort.  "Shit.  I...  Shit, Ford, I'm sorry," he said, his hand shaking as he lowered it and passed it between the bars, reaching for Ford's.  
  
"No.  Really, it's alright," he insisted, drawing his hand away from Stan and sliding himself back from the bars.  
  
"No.  It isn't," Stan growled, withdrawing his hand and clenching it in a fist, ready to pound it against the bars.  "That bastard's going to pay for this somehow-  Wait..." his body stiffened with the shift in his thoughts, his fist lowering to the ground.  "When I was passed out...  Why  _didn't_  he kill me?"  
  
"Because I asked him not to," he said, reaching for the nearest pillow, a bolster pillow filled with microbeads, and cradling it in his lap.  
  
"Oh, Ford...  Don't tell me you-"  
  
"No.  I didn't make any deals or anything," he reassured Stan, looking into his eyes as if to show him it wasn't one of Bill's lies.  "When I asked him not to, he took it as...  He said it would be too quick and painless. He said there are far worse things than death and that he's going to show them to us.  Stanley, I think he really does have another plan and he's expecting it to work.  I think possessing me this time was perhaps, a last effort to see if he could trick us and he didn't actually care if it worked or not.  I mean, obviously, if it happened to, he would have accepted the victory but I get the sense that he didn't expect it to."  
  
"Did...  Did you see anything in his mind this time?"  
  
"No.  I...  I couldn't...  I didn't want to risk it with you in immediate danger," he admitted, his hands kneeding the pillow between them, taking in the satisfying shift of the beads inside.  
  
"Wait wait wait...  So...  you're telling me that while I might'a been risking the world with my own dumb plan, you gave up the chance to possibly save it by poking around in his mind and maybe seeing what he's up to just to try to save me?  Even though you didn’t know if you actually could?"  
  
"Lottie?"  Dr. Braum leaned over and whispered to her assistant, "What is all this talk about risking...  Or saving the world and seeing into Bill's mind?  No one told us this part, did they?"  
  
"New to me," Lottie said, crumpling up the CheezCorn bag and dropping it into the trash bin without so much as glancing away from the scene unfolding before them.  
  
Ford nodded and said with a wry laugh, "We're a couple of old fools, aren't we?"  
  
"Yeah," Stan agreed.  "Guess we are.  But, on the bright side, you can get control back while Bill's possessing you now, right?"  
  
"Essentially, yes.  I think, anyway.  It's a little more complicated than that but I can't even begin to explain right now.  I'm not totally sure I even understand it.  Or remember it all.  But, Stanley... Your plan was...  I think the premise was actually pretty clever."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah.  I mean, Bill didn't get the keys in the end and you did so..." Ford paused, holding up his hand with his fingers all intact, "Thank you.  Thank you for not giving up.  All these years.  All these stupid decades and you're still getting beat up to protect me."  
  
"That was beautiful."  Dr. Braum sniffled.    
  
"Very moving,"  Lottie added, blotting her eyes with her suit collar.  
  
"Never have I wanted to see two people be able to hug so much in my life."  
  
Stan turned around, glaring at the doctor and her assistant with knitted brows.  "You two have been sitting there listening to us this whole time?"  
  
"Not our fault you didn't escort us out before having a heart-to-heart," Lottie said flatly, her arms crossed over her chest as if to prove she hadn’t just teared up over their conversation.  
  
"Yeah, what she said," Dr. Braum answered, sliding off of the cedar chest and adjusting her lab coat.  "Now I'm trying really hard to honor our motto of 'don't ask, just do the job and get paid.'"  
  
  
****  
  
  
In the glow of the attic's warm light and amid the sharp smells of hairspray and nail polish, three girls giggled and gossiped with no sign of sleepiness creeping in on them.  Grenda sat in the center of the floor, leaning against a pillow with her lips pursed as Mabel plastered Reddest Red lipstick on them.  Candy, meanwhile, held up a curling iron, easing the tip of her finger toward it to test if it had heated up yet.  Barely touching it, she jerked her hand back, shaking it and announcing, "Yes, it is hot now," before setting it back on its metal stand.    
  
"Oh my gosh Grenda, you look even more beautiful than ever!" Mabel gasped, backing away and snapping the lid back onto the lipstick.  
  
"You are so glamorous," Candy added, reaching for a mirror and holding it up so she could admire the bright blush and purple eye shadow plastered onto her face.  
  
"I look like a goddess!" She said, grabbing the mirror and tilting it to view Mabel's handiwork from different angles.  
  
"Want to smell like one too?" Mabel asked with a quirked eyebrow, holding up a bottle of glitter-infused body spray.  
  
"YES!"  
  
"I want to smell like a goddess too," Candy added, watching Mabel spritz Grenda.  
  
"Let's all smell like goddesses!" Mabel said, spritzing Candy then turning the bottle to herself.  
  
"Wait," Candy protested, holding up the curling iron and clicking the clamp.  "I must do your hair first," 

Mabel squealed out an "EEEE," her eyes practically sparkling and smile widening until nearly her full set of braces was visible.  She flopped down into a cross-legged position, letting the body spray bottle settle into her lap.  As Candy reached over, curling the rod around Mabel's bangs, Grenda stood to admire herself in the full-length mirror beside the closet.  
  
"Hey Mabel," she said, reaching for the closet door, "We need a wardrobe makeover now.  You have anything good in he-" her voice cut off as she opened the door and a rancid odor almost visibly puffed out from within.  "Ugh what is that smell?"  
  
"Oh yeah, I don't know what's up with that closet," Mabel explained, "but it's smelled like that since Dipper and I got here.  I swear something like...  Lives in there."  
  
Candy lifted the curling iron, pulling up so Mabel's bangs stood straight up at the top of her head as if she was a startled cartoon character.  "That is creepy," she said, reaching for a tube of pink lipstick.  "We should be like your brother and investigate."  
  
"Yeah, I keep telling him there's something in there but he won't believe me.  He thinks it's probably just mold.  Buuuut, I guess we really could check it out, huh, girls?"  
  
"YES!" Grenda agreed, charging in and closing the door behind her.  
  
"Should we go after her?" Mabel asked, shifting as if to stand.  
  
"Not yet," Candy replied, resting her hand on Mabel's shoulder to stop her, "Let me finish your make-up first.  I am almost done," she added with a sly smile.  
  
"Why does it feel like you're doing something to my forehead?"  
  
"It will be beautiful.  Trust me," Candy answered, adding the l to the words "Party Gurl" on Mabel's forehead.  
  
"I think we should go after Grenda, I can't hear her in there anymore," Mabel protested, pushing past Candy to lift herself to her feet.  As she passed the full-length mirror, she caught a glimpse of Candy's so-called makeover.   "Candy!  What did you do to my beautiful face?!"    
  
"We should not worry about that now.  We must check on Grenda."  
  
"Right," Mabel said with squinted eyes, watching Candy walk past her to the closet door and already imagining fifty ways to get revenge.  
  
"Grenda," Candy asked, knocking on the door, "Are you alright in there?"  
  
"Yeah, Grenda?" Mabel prompted, leaning against the door to hear any sign of what was happening inside.  When no answer or sound emerged, she added, "Grenda, we're coming in now!"  
  
"No don't!"  
  
"Grenda, are you alright?" Mabel and Candy yelled in unison.  
  
"Better than alright!  Now I get what they mean by seven minutes in heaven!" she answered, her voice seemingly muffled by more than the door between them on the last word.  
  
Mabel looked at Candy with a cringe that was mirrored back to her.  "I don't even want to know," she said, backing away from the doorknob.  "Well, I guess it's just us now, huh?"  
  
"It appears so."  
  
"Want to read the new Pre-teen Heartbeat magazine?!" Mabel asked, handing the magazine to Candy, "There's a centerfold of Deep Chris this month!"  
  
"Yes, did you hear Sev'ral Timez is going to be here soon?"  
  
"What?!  Oh we are so going!" she said, the end of her proclamation muffled as she shimmied between Dipper's bed and the nightstand, reaching for the plug to the curling iron.  

She barely heard Candy's, "Yes!  We must get tickets," as her hand brushed against something donut shaped and fairly heavy.  Duct tape.  Or, more appropriately, the perfect means of revenge.  
  
She backed out, holding the roll in her hands, a malevolent smile widening on her face.  "Yeah, we totally need to go," she said in an overly innocent tone, creeping up behind Candy while she was distracted by kissing the centerfold.  
  
At the rip of tape being torn from its roll behind her head, her eyes shot wide open and the magazine flew from her hands.  
  
"Look what I found!" Mabel said with a laugh as she flung the tape around her friend's arms and torso.  Neither one was quite sure how she managed to tape Candy to the ceiling but there she was, plastered to it like one of Mabel's posters to the wall.  "Ha ha!  Got you back!" she joked setting the empty tape roll on the night stand.  She crawled up onto her bed where Waddles was crouched, leaning over the nightstand to look out the window.  "What'cha lookin at, there, Waddles?  Is Dipper still being a drama queen out there?" she asked, leaning over beside him to see for herself.  "Oh..."  
  
In the parking lot below was an SUV that looked oddly familiar.  She watched a stout-looking shadow walk through the moonlight to the driver's side door and climb in, slamming it shut behind them.  Following shortly after was an overall large figure who stepped around to the passenger's side and a limping figure that hunched over an awful lot like Grunkle Stan.  
  
"Tourists asking for directions, huh, Grunkle Stan?" she muttered to herself, lifting herself up to hear whatever she could through a hole broken in the window by one of Dipper's golf balls from their game that morning.  
  
"Thanks for coming to check up on things here.  It's, uh.  It's good to know I can count on you two." Said a voice that was gruff like Grunkle Stan's but softer and strained, like her own voice was after singing too much.   
  
"Well, I'm just glad it was nothing too serious," replied a voice that sounded like she imagined one of the goddesses she’d spoken of earlier might.  
  
"Yeah.  It was a close call this time.  I guess I got a little too, I dunno, something."  
  
"It's alright.  But, I meant what I said.  If there's anything we can do to help, just give us a call."  
  
"Heh, yeah, I will, thanks.  Anyway, thanks for not blabbing anything to the kid.  I just don't want to drag them into all this mess.  They're here to have a nice summer in the fresh air not to deal with-"  
  
Mabel leaned forward further, standing on the nightstand, straining to hear more and failing to notice that her foot came down on Waddles front hoof.  
  
Stan cut himself off at the sound of a squealed oink from the illuminated window above the Museum.    
  
"Waddles!" Mabel hissed and backed away from the window, dragging Waddles with her.  
  
The next thing she could hear was the sound of a car door closing and the engine starting up then fading into the distance.  By the time she dared to look out the window again, the parking lot was empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pljbqefkd pbbjp laaiv cxjfifxo xylrq qexq alzqlo xka ebo xppfpqxkq... Qebk xdxfk, vlr erjxkp xii illh qeb pxjb ql jb.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Past end notes decoded here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)


	31. Secret Hidden Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel tries to tell Dipper about what she saw last night but Dipper's too preoccupied by annoyance to hear it. Thanks to a nightmare, Stan wants to check on Ford but before he gets a chance, Soos finds Ford's old room. Stan tries to hide as many of Ford's possessions as possible before the kids see. Shenanigans ensue and when Stan finally gets a chance to visit Ford, he's not exactly himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~No Warnings this time
> 
> ~This chapter takes a few jumps between scenes because some of it still follows canon. Dipper and Mabel still switch bodies and have the same reactions then try to sabotage each other with Stan.
> 
> ~Inktober is ink-over and now it's time to get back to some writing. Sort of. Things are still busy because it's the holidays so updates might be sparse until January. Just in case I don't get to update again until then (hopefully it won't be that long), happy holidays and happy new year, everyone!
> 
> ~Oh, there's a few pen sketches from this fic [ here ](http://ginandshattereddreams.tumblr.com/post/179027649302/rum-and-shattered-dreams-inktober-days-eleven)
> 
> ~Thanks again to everyone for reading and for hanging around through this hiatus!
> 
> ~Also, I'm still poking at [ the notes file ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t4XA0sL6w42e1Bv_P--ugSvVkRPCCmYDTWKcFJnBCAw/edit?usp=sharing) for this but it's been going glacially slow.

"Ugh, what happened last night?" Mabel asked through a sleepy haze, lifting the DVD case to Boyz World off of her face and immediately wishing she hadn't.  Normally the pungent smell of nail polish remover and the sweet but almost plastic-like scent of dollar store perfume brought back memories of slumber parties past and hopes for future fun but, this time, they also aggravated the ache in her head that seemed to take root somewhere in her lower back.  She patted the hard surface below her, finding the most likely cause; she'd apparently fallen asleep flat out on her back on the bare floor.  She sat up and blinked as light assaulted her eyes, streaming through the window and the break in one of its triangular glass panes, jagged but roughly the size of a golf ball- _or maybe an eyeball_ , she giggled to herself, feeling a bit better as she remembered the amount of bounce the rubber souvenirs had added to the mini-golf game she and her brother had played yesterday.  
  
Amusement switched to confusion when Candy's voice asked from somewhere above her, "What's up party girl?"  
  
Mabel tipped her head up to find her friend giggling and waving as much as she could considering she'd been duct taped to the ceiling above her bed.  Before she could answer, or rather, repeat the question she'd asked in the first place, the closet door swung open and Grenda stepped out with lipstick marks smeared and spotted across her face.  
  
"I don't know what I was kissing in there," she said, her smile widening, "but I have no regrets!"  
  
Mabel wanted to smile back and maybe even give her friend a thumbs up but found herself grimacing instead as Candy announced, accompanied by the zip of peeling tape, "Candy falls down now."  She flopped right on top of the Eiffel Tower model Dipper had built for their golf course, breaking it in half and sending the pieces sailing through the air.  
  
Her wince shifted to a sigh of relief as Candy bounced back up, brushed herself off, and stumbled through the cardboard remains of mini-golf monuments.  The mystery box that was hole eleven clung to her foot, tripping her up, but she shook it off with ease and joined Grenda by the door.  
  
Mabel was about to suggest they all race each other to the kitchen, winner gets the last of the Enchanted Forest Fruity Charms, when she suddenly wondered why her forehead felt so...  Naked?  She reached up, patting the area until her hand finally found her bangs standing straight up.  And just like that, she remembered everything.  She remembered Grenda's makeover and her disappearance into the stench of the closet which, now that she thought of it, didn't seem to have any trace of an odor wafting through its open door.  Had whatever was in there left?  Showered?  Somehow magically become less...  Gross?  If there was a power of Mabel, was there a power of Grenda, too?  She'd have to think about that later.  Right now, she needed to find Dipper because while she remembered taping Candy to the ceiling after the prank makeover that left her with the words "party gurl" scrawled on her forehead and her bangs teased into what looked like a confused mohawk, she also remembered overhearing Grunkle Stan's late-night rendezvous, specifically the part where he thanked his visitors for "not blabbing to the kid".  
  
Flattening her bangs back down, she used a simple, "that was awesome, girls," to lead into a still rather abrupt, "see you again soon!" and a wave goodbye.  
  
Mabel didn't know where Candy and Grenda were planning to go when they left the attic still in their nightshirts.  All she knew was that she needed to find-  
  
"Dipper!"  
  
His feet dragged in exhaustion, a dull ache thrumming through his bandaged leg as he approached his sister.  "Mabel," he said, lifting his cap to reveal darkened circles below his eyes, "We need to talk."  
  
"Yeah, we definitely do," she agreed, bouncing closer to him with a half-excited, half-concerned, "Last night I saw-"  
  
"Mabel!" Dipper interrupted, his hand swishing through the air, causing her to screech to a stop just beyond arm's reach of him, "Last night a wolf tried to eat my leg!  I had to get like twelve shots!  Okay maybe it was only two but still!"  
  
Not fully registering what he'd said she answered, "That's great but-"  
  
"No!  It's not!  This," he said, gesturing to a bottle of nail polish, left open to drain onto the crumpled carpet, and the smears of eye shadow painting the hardwood in a rainbow of glittery powder, "is impossible to live with!"  
  
"What?!  I'm delightful to live with!" Mabel defended, reaching down for the first thing she could grab in order to prove her point.  A stick.  She picked up a stick.   But, no amount of blandness was going to defeat her.  "Get ready to be poked with the fun stick!  Boop," she improvised.  
  
As the stick's end poked him in the cheek, annoyance boiled over into rage, melting his exhaustion until he shouted, "Argh!  I've had it with your fun stick!" and smacked it from her hand.  He averted his attention from the expression of pure shock and something akin to betrayal that flashed across his sister's face, unwilling to let it unleash any guilt within him or, perhaps, looking for more fuel to prove his point to her and himself.  He didn't have to look far before he found it.  "You've totally wrecked our room. And," he let out a gasp, his heart sinking  as he caught sight of the broken Eiffel Tower model and the half-smashed mystery box.  "Oh no! Our mini-golf course!"  
  
He thought they were having fun yesterday, thought that building those models together had meant as much to Mabel as it did to him, but she seemed to dismiss it so easily with, "Heh heh, yeah.  Grenda sure loves breaking things."  
  
Mabel wasn't even sure why she said that.  Grenda had nothing to do with it.   _If I hadn't taped Candy to the ceiling...  Stupid getting overexcited and silly and just messing things up again-_  
  
"Mabel," Dipper said with the voice of a parent who'd had enough shenanigans, "We need to lay down some ground rules if we're gonna be living in this room together.  First of all, no sleepovers!"  
  
"What?!"  No.  Maybe she _had_ gotten over excited.  Maybe she _had_ crossed a bit of a line but the idea of cancelling tonight's plans and any future plans felt like she was being grounded by her own brother, like she was being told she wasn't allowed to have any other friends.  Besides, it wasn't like she'd never lost any sleep because he'd gotten over excited about something before.  "Well," she answered, "If I can't have sleepovers, then you can't keep me up every night with your summer reading!"  
  
"How does reading keep you up?"  
  
"'But who stole the capers?'" She answered in her dorkiest Dipper impression.  "Sound familiar?  Accompanied by a pen clicking a bazillionty times a second?"  
  
"Well, at least that wasn't such an assault to the senses that it made you have to find another place to sleep!  Look!" he huffed, pointing to his bandaged leg.  "My leg is still throbbing from sleeping outside last night!  An owl tried to eat my tongue!"  
  
"It's not my fault you decided sleeping outside was a better idea than sleeping on the floor of literally any other room in the shack!  Okay, maybe not ANY other room because no one wants you sleeping in Grunkle Stan's room..."  
  
"What are you saying?  That it's my fault I-"  
  
"Maybe I am!  You know, you always do this!  You get all cranky-crank-pants then do something that makes things worse for yourself and blame it on me!"  
  
"Well...  At least my braces don't whistle when I breathe!"  
  
"At least I wash my clothes once in a while!" Mabel retorted, using the fun stick to pick up a pair of his underwear and wave it in his face.  
  
"Washing clothes is a waste of time, I'm a busy guy."  
  
Beyond the ability to argue rationally anymore, since clearly Mr. Rationality himself had stopped bothering with it, Mabel mocked him - and admittedly, comforted herself - with a series of, "Meow meow meow meow meow!"  
  
"Alright!" He slashed the air with his hand , "If you meow one more time-!"  
  
  
****  
  
  
Between the blue glow of the axolotl aquarium and the flicker of the TV, Stan hunched forward in his arm chair.  His body felt heavy against the familiar dent in its cushion as he clasped a pair of glasses between his hands.  Ford's.    
  
"Tonight on Baby Fights," an overzealous voice announced on the TV, "Tensions rise between Maddison and Avery at Baby Fights Headquarters."  
  
As much as he wanted the distraction, as much as he wished he could follow his usual routine and funnel everything he felt into chanting "fight fight," until he swept everything under a superficial surge of exaggerated excitement, he couldn't stop his thoughts from spiraling as he stared down at those familiar horn-rimmed frames.    
  
_How long has it been now?  Thirty years since he disappeared? No, since I screwed up AGAIN and pushed him into that...  That damned device that HE built!  Stupid genius..._ _Where are you?  Are you even still alive?  Are you dead or dying in some Hell dimension because of me?  No...  You can't be.  I'm going to get you back.  I promise.  You have to be alright.  You have to be, do you hear me, Ford?!_  
  
Stan snorted himself awake, the name blurting out as a broken, "O'rd".  His first instinct would have been to run downstairs and see for himself that Ford was still there, still alive, still in this dimension, but an involuntary groan rumbled past his lips, reminding him that Ford's very real, very present feet had collided with his face at some point last night.  
  
His head felt like a balloon filled with too much air being dragged into the depths of an ocean and his back ached more than usual from following the doctor's order of propping himself up against a pile of pillows to sleep.  He reached for the ice bag he'd made up before getting into bed earlier only to find it melted, his pillow drenched beneath it.  Turning and lowering his legs off the side of the bed took a fair bit more snap, crackle, and popping than usual even though he consciously took his time.  He was dizzy enough without moving, the last thing he needed was to slip off the side of the bed, land face-first on the floor, and turn his nose's minor fracture into a severe break.  
  
"That damn dream again..." he muttered, though he couldn't exactly call it a recurring dream.  It was more like dreams with a recurring theme of what-if's that followed him for the past twenty years or so.  He tried but couldn't suppress a shudder at the vivid feeling of emptiness he'd felt, that he'd felt in every single dream over the years, whether he was forty-five and eating microwave mac and cheese alone or sixty and staring at his reflection in a punch bowl on their birthday.  Even if they were just nightmares his mind conjured from some deep-rooted fear, the loneliness and guilt had coursed through him, throbbing like the pain in his head except it had radiated from his chest, through his limbs and back again, circling around and building in intensity with each wave.  What if he hadn't been able to pull Ford back into their own dimension?  Would he really still be trying to get him back thirty years later?  
  
He sighed and reached for the lamp, closing his eyes for a moment as he turned it on.  Part of him wanted to lean over and cup his face in his hands but most of him wondered if he'd even be able to wear his glasses for a while.  He lifted them, cradling them much like he had with Ford's in his dream and decided to pocket them in his boxers for now.  He could always put them on for a minute if he really needed to.  His vision wasn't so bad that he'd walk straight into a wall without them.  That was more like Ford's vision, even when they were kids.   _And now he only has half of that..._   He sighed, trying to shake the thought off before it could take root.  
  
At least the house was quiet.  The shouts and laughter of Mabel's slumber party had fallen silent after Dr. Braum had left.  He figured she and her friends must have finally fallen asleep.  At least, he hoped so.  Even more, he hoped they, and Dipper, too, were still sleeping.  He'd take any moment of quiet he could get.  Besides, checking up on Ford did sound like a good idea.  He didn't have the energy to pretend some part of him wasn't afraid he'd open the basement door to find a dark cavern with a nonfunctional portal at its center rather than the warm light of Ford's padded room and his familiar greeting.  
  
As he plodded through the hall toward the bathroom, his slippers grating along worn wood grain below his feet, he considered cancelling museum tours for the day.  The sight of the blackened mess around his eyes made the decision for him.  Sure he could probably make himself look less like he'd lost a bar fight by using copious amounts of concealer but, as it was, he could barely move past the ache of cracking bones and strained muscles.  Having to put more effort than usual into looking presentable was the icing on his "nope" cake.  
  
_Besides,_  he thought, struggling for mouthfuls of stale, soupy air,  _it's still so hot that it feels like even the air is tired of being hot.  I'll probably melt if I stuff my sweaty ass into a suit today._  
  
With that decided, he figured he should at least try to cover the bruises around his neck with concealer.   He wasn't sure how to work obvious finger marks into his lie about an accident in the junkyard if anyone was awake.  
  
Luckily, the kids did seem to still be asleep.  The only problem was, he barely made it down the stairs without having to stop and take a seat half-way.  It felt like he was climbing down the side of a mountain by the time he reached the broken step and the last two beyond it.  His feet dragged as he followed the smell of coffee to the kitchen but he managed to pour himself a cup in a chipped "What is the Mystery Shack" souvenir mug.  At the point where he had to support his arm with his other hand just to carry the mug, he decided he'd need to sit for a minute before attempting to pour a cup for Ford and tackle another flight of stairs.  
  
With his head still throbbing, he swallowed two of the painkillers Dr. Braum had left for him, washing them down a gulp of coffee, and reached for a drawer below the toaster to pull out an old hand towel.  He soaked it under the faucet, struggled to ring it out, and brought it with him to the living room.  
  
He peeked around the corner, unsurprised to find his chair empty.  Someone had to make that coffee and it probably wasn't a gnome.  Soos must have already had his fill and gotten to work for the day.  He'd put away the blanket he was using last night and it looked like he'd even vacuumed the living room and the chair already.    
  
_Probably trying to erase any evidence that he used it last night,_  Stan chuckled and eased himself into the chair.  He leaned back despite a lingering sensation bordering on déjà vu.   _Maybe it was just a nightmare but, it felt exactly like this.  Like I was really sitting here..._  
  
_You said you can't lose me, ya old nerd, but...  I don't wanna lose you either.  
_  
He draped the damp cloth over his forehead, letting his armchair's fully reclined position cradle him among its broken springs and lumpy padding.  His eyes slipped shut and he let out a relieved "Ahh," his voice still raspier than usual  _thanks to nearly being strangled to death by a demon last night_.  His stomach still flip-flopped at the implications of Bill's reasoning behind letting him survive the night.  _There are far worse things than death._  Hadn't they already been living through enough Hell?  Was this really just playtime for that demented nacho chip?  If it was, Stan didn't want to imagine what serious vengeance or wrath might mean for them.  
  
In what felt like one second but, according to the owl-shaped clock on the wall, was actually almost two hours, he awoke to the sound of something...  Meowing?  
  
"Soos," Stan tried to yell but it came out as more of a cough.  "Ow."  He gave it another try, this time producing a hoarse shout, "Soos, did a cat get in the house or somethin'?"  
  
He sat upright, the cloth falling from his forehead into his lap as Dipper's voice echoed down the stairs, "Alright if you meow one more time-"  
  
"Meow meow meow!"  
  
"Oh.  It's just Mabel," Stan reasoned, sitting back only to push himself forward again.  "Oh!  I was supposed to help Dipper talk to-"  
  
"Okay, that's it! That's the final straw!" Dipper yelled, "Maybe we shouldn't share a room anymore."  
  
"Well maybe we shouldn't!"  Mabel shouted back.  
  
"Oh boy..." Stan murmured to himself, "That sounds more familiar than I wanna think about..."  
  
"Fine by me!"  
  
"Double fine by me!"  
  
"Here we go..." Stan grumbled as he heard two sets of footsteps scampering down the stairs.   
  
Dipper rounded the corner and stomped into the living room demanding, "Grunkle Stan, we want different rooms!"  
  
"Ha!" Stan answered, dabbing his forehead with the damp cloth.  Experience wanted him to answer with "No you don't."  Instead, he found himself blurting what his dad used to say to Ford and himself whenever they asked for something, "And I want a pair of magic money pants."  
  
Mabel jogged into the room, skidding to a halt beside her brother.  With a confused lilt, she repeated, "Magic money pant- Whoa!" she cut herself off as Stan lowered the cloth, revealing his raccoon-like eyes.  "What the heck happened to you?!"  
  
"Oh yeah," Dipper answered, Rubbing the back of his neck.  "He went to see McGucket last night but had an accident on the way.  Are you feeling any better?"  
  
"Yeah, are you alright?" Mabel asked, climbing onto the dinosaur skull beside Stan's chair, her foot catching his coffee cup on the way up.  "Is that why that car and that lady were here last night?"   
  
"Mabel, watch out!" Dipper warned, ignoring the dull pain in his leg and racing forward to catch the cup before it tipped over.  
  
She ignored him in favor of looking over Stan's face with pursed lips and brows knitted in concern as if she was his personal nurse.  
  
"Whoa, nice catch, kiddo," he chuckled, watching Dipper catch the cup upright between both hands with not a drop spilled.  Or at least not that he could see.  It might have been hopeful thinking since he didn't really want to explain to Ford how the doily he'd made decades ago got drenched in coffee.  
  
Mabel leaned further over him until her upside down face spanned his entire field of blurry vision.  "I'll be fine, pumpkin," he said, waving her off.  "And yeah.  That was a doctor friend of mine.  I asked her to come by and make sure I don't have a concussion or something."  
  
"Yeah, good thing, too," Dipper added, watching Mabel climb down from the dinosaur skull.  "She's the one who gave me shots after SOMEONE drove me out of our room last night."   
  
"Ugh, this again?" Mabel said, perching one hand on her hip and prodding at Dipper's chest with the other.  "You know, maybe we were a bit loud but I didn't force you at grappling hook point to sleep outside like dummy dumb dummington!"  
  
"I think she's got you there, kiddo," Stan said with a shrug.  
  
"Yeah, but did you hear that?  She admitted it!  They were so loud last night that...  Argh!  I just want somewhere I can sleep and not wake up with a possum sitting on my face or glitter up my nose!"  
  
"And I want to be able to have fun with my friends without Dour-pper being all sulky!"  
  
With matching pouts, the twins said in unison, "We want our own rooms."  
  
"Sorry," Stan said with a shrug that ended in a wince as he placed his glasses near the tip of his nose.  "Not gonna happen."  
  
"Come on, Grunkle Stan," Dipper begged, setting the mug back on the dinosaur skull's (oh good it really isn't stained) doily.  "Can't we work something out?"  
  
"Look, kid.  There's my room and the attic," he answered.  "That's it.  What do you think, there's some kind of secret hidden room in the Shack?"  
  
Just as the words left his mouth a crash came from down the hall...  Suspiciously close to...  
  
"Dudes!"  Soos shouted, "I found some kind of secret hidden room in the shack!"  
  
Dipper and Mabel looked to each other with excitement then, almost as if they suddenly remembered their fight, their expressions scrunched as if they were each trying to visually threaten the other.  With that, they turned and sped into the hall.  
  
"Yup," Stan said with an exaggerated sigh, collecting his damp cloth and lifting himself from his chair.  "This may as well happen."  
  
  
****  
  
Mabel brushed sweat from her forehead as she watched Stan take his first bite of an omelette she'd sculpted in his likeness.  Hopefully Dipper hadn't noticed her slip away while he finished nailing the last few tiles to the shack's roof.  She almost felt bad for leaving him out there in the, as Stan had called it, "searing 105 degree heat".  But, the high noon heat was merely a different type of miserable in the kitchen.  Sure the sun broiled them on the roof but it felt more like a pillow over the face while baking in an oven in the kitchen.  Even with the window open, there was no breeze.  But, no amount of heat could deter her determination.   
  
"I gotta win that room now," she thought to herself, listening as Stan hummed in approval at the egg's flavor.  He'd already called it the face of beauty.  Surely that and her comment about how he's really pulling off the "got kicked in the face by a goat" look had to mean something.    
  
"This is delicious.  And that's not just cause hunger is the best seasoning," Stan commented, leaning close to the plate to cut himself another bite.  He'd held his glasses up to see what she'd created when she first slid the plate in front of him, but now, he'd opted to set them on the table.  
  
"Can I get you anything for your uh...  Injuries?" she asked.  "An ice pack?  Some pain killers?"  
  
"Nah, I'm alright," he answered with his mouth full.  
  
"Well, then," she said, backing out of the room, "I guess I'll just let you have some nice peace and quiet."  
  
_Yes, that room is as good as mine!  I'll have my own bathroom and not have to clean up everyone's splatters on the mirror and deal with everything around the sink being wet...  I mean what exactly are they doing in there anyway?  Letting birds use it as a birdbath?  And Oh...  OH!  AAAAH!  The sleepover potential!  We'll make that bathroom a beauty parlor!  And the room's got a huge sofa!  I bet we can all fit on it and we'll get a TV in there and we can watch movies and hook up my karaoke machine!  And we can have fashion shows in front of that giant mirror!  And and and...  And Dipper can never blame me for his dummy dumb overreactions again!  Or for ruining our stuff...  And I won't have to hear him saying everything I like is stupid girl stuff anymore!_  
  
Her feet pattered lightly through the hall and she opened the door slowly, glad Dipper had taken Stan up on the offer for extra suck-up points in exchange for oiling the squeaky hinges.  She squinted as sunlight blasted through and tip-toed down the stairs.  If she could make it back up to the roof without her brother noticing she was gone, she could claim points for that AND the omelette and he'd never know-.  
  
"Oh no!"  
  
She turned to look at the house, ran around every side, but, the ladder was already put away and there were no tools or shingles in sight.  She rushed back in searching the shack for any sign of Dipper.  He wasn't in the attic, still strewn with broken pieces of their mini-golf course.  She turned on the lights in the museum, just in case he was sneaking around in the dark but there was no sign of him there.  She checked the gift shop but only found Wendy reading a magazine behind the counter while a little girl stared at snow globes and her parents perused pamphlets on national parks.  He wasn't in the living room, kitchen, ballroom, or parlor and when she knocked at the bathroom, calling out "Oh, finally taking a shower, huh, Dipper," all she got was an awkward "Oh man, for your sake, I hope you're not in there, Dipper.  Nope.  Ha ha.  He's not in the shower, dood," from Soos.  Stan's room was locked, as usual.  That only left...  
  
"The secret room!" she said with a gasp and ran through the hall towards the ornate door Soos had found behind a bookcase.  "But Stan locked it.  Can Dipper pick locks?  No, he wouldn't...  Maybe he walked to the store to buy more nails for the roof or something..."  
  
But, just as she suspected, the door was cracked open, framed by slits of amber light.  
  
She eased it open enough to squish through but, apparently Dipper didn't think to oil those hinges.  Silence wouldn't have helped her sneak up on him anyway, though.  He was staring at the calendar beside the door and caught sight of her the moment it moved.  
  
"Dipper!  What are you doing!  How did you even get in here?  Stan locked the door.  We both saw him!"  She gasped, both hands flying to her face and asked, "He didn't give you the key already, did he?!"  
  
"No no." he answered, digging in his pocket, "I have the president's key, remember?"  He pulled his hand out and opened his palm to show it to her then snatched it away again, shoving it back into his shorts' pocket.  
  
"Well...  You shouldn't be in here!" she snapped, turning on her heel to leave, "I'm telling Grunkle Stan and he's gonna deduct all your suck up points and-"  
  
"Mabel, shh!"  Dipper said, jogging the three steps between Mabel and himself and grabbing a handful of her sweater sleeve.  
  
"Why should I-?"  
  
"Mabel!" he hissed, "I'm not kidding.  Look."  He pointed to the calendar, a simple nature themed one displaying a photo of a brown owl sitting on a tree branch.  
  
"So, what about it?  Someone liked owls?"  
  
"Look at the date," Dipper said, motioning toward it.  
  
"July 1992," she read aloud, leaning closer to see it.  "So?" she started to shrug but her eyes widened and her answer morphed into a blurted, "Waitaminute!"  
  
"Right?"  Dipper said, tapping his chin and pacing, his feet following the pattern of a circle on the area rug as he elaborated.  "We both heard Grunkle Stan tell stories about running the Mystery Shack...  Or Murder Hut, I guess?  In the 80's.  That means he must have known this room was here and hid it for a reason."  
  
"Or maybe Blendin or one of the other time traveler types lived here before Stan got here?" She suggested with a shrug.  
  
"I wondered that at first, too," Dipper said, pausing in front of Mabel.  He toed the carpet's tag, labeling it as experiment 78, and added, "but I wanted to find out more."  
  
"So, you came in here to snoop around?"  
  
"Little bit, yeah.  Look," he said, turning and motioning to a sheet covering most of the items on top of an old library card catalog.  The only object partially uncovered appeared to be a trophy bigger than the twins' heads.  "I noticed this trophy when we were in here before but I didn't get a close look before Grunkle Stan practically pushed us out of here and locked it all up.  And I know I saw a pair of glasses on the table by the door there.  You can even kiiiind of see lines in the dust where they might have been.  Maybe I'm just being suspicious but, I mean...  Stan's kind of...  You know."  
  
"Good at taking things without anyone noticing?"  
  
"Yeah.  That."  
  
"Well, what are we waiting for, then?  Let's check things out before he finds us in here!" Mabel said and rushed past him.  She kicked her shoes off and jumped onto the sofa, climbing up on its arm.  Grunting as if it helped make her taller, she reached for the top of the cabinet.  Her fingers barely brushed the base of the trophy but with a long "Arrrgh," she was able to push it to the edge and send it tumbling off.  
  
"Whoa, Mabel, careful!"  Dipper charged forward, landing on his stomach but catching the trophy before it hit the floor.  "Whew" he sighed as Mabel jumped down beside him and lifted the trophy from his arms.  
  
Her eyes grew wide as she read the engraved plate on its base.  "Dipper, you're right.  Look!" She said, turning the trophy for him to read for himself.  
  
He stood, dusting himself off and leaned forward, reading it aloud, "Senior Science Fair.  Stanford Pines.  First Place."  His fingers twined into his curls, lifting his hat as he wondered aloud, "I...  I don't get it.  Why would he want to hide something like this?  Wouldn't he be proud of it?"  
  
"Yeah, that doesn't make any sense," she said, climbing back onto the sofa and reaching to push the trophy back into place, nearly dropping it twice as it teetered between her fingertips and the top of the cabinet.    
  
Dipper swayed back and forth below her, his hands held out and ready to catch the trophy again.  He wiped his forehead and let out a relieved breath as it finally tipped into place.  
  
Mabel slid down and smoothed out her sweater, a thought falling out before her hands obeyed her command to clap over her mouth, "I wonder if this has anything to do with why he's seeing a ther-"  
  
"He's what?" Dipper asked with a quirked brow.  
  
"I...  I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone but...  I overheard him making an appointment with a therapist one day," she answered, reaching for one of her shoes, turned upside down and nearly pushed under the sofa.  
  
"You...  really weren't going to tell me that were you?  Figures," he snorted, crossing his arms and turning away, his face masked in shadow and his back spotted with red and orange light cast by the stained glass window above the sofa.  "Must be why he takes your side all the time!"  
  
"Wha-?  Dipper, that's...  He doesn't...  I mean..."  She couldn't deny that she was getting along fairly well with Grunkle Stan while Dipper seemed to struggle with the lists of chores their great uncle kept giving him.  With her shoe clutched between her hands, she took a step closer, unsure what to say in her defense or as a consolation.  
  
"What else do you know that you're not telling me?" Dipper asked, turning back to her, "What?  Does he have like, some sort of weird past he's told you all about or-"  
  
"Well..."  
  
"What?  Out with it!"  
  
"I mean, he didn't actually tell me this," she answered, letting her shoe drop to the floor again, "But, last night, I overheard him say something to that doctor lady about 'thanks for not blabbing to the kid' but I swear I don't know what he was talking about or anything."  
  
"And you're just now telling me this?"  
  
"I tried to tell you this morning but  _someone_  just wanted to yell at me!"  
  
"I wouldn't have yelled at you if you hadn't kept me up all night and ruined our room!"  
  
"That's it," Mabel blurted, turning back to the door and taking a step toward it, "I'm telling Stan you came in here even though he said not to-"  
  
"Then I'll tell him how you left me to finish the roof alone!" Dipper snapped, rushing after her and grabbing the cuff of her sweater.  
  
She swung around, jerking her cuff free, her arm brushing against his hip as she threatened, "I'll tell him that you were sneaking around in his room and reading his notes!"  
  
"Well, I'll tell him how you let a gremloblin loose in the shack!"  
  
"What?" she barked, prodding his quilted vest with her forefinger as she lifted herself to her toes to lean over him.  "I'm not the one who's so obsessed with a mystery journal that I thought it would be a good idea to catch one in the first place!"  
  
"I locked it up for a reason, Mabel!" he retorted, smacking her hand away and stepping back to circle around her, his feet tracing the carpet's circle pattern.  
  
"It was still an employee and employees deserve breaks!" She countered, her socks sending up static sparks as as she mirrored Dipper's steps on her side of the carpet.   
  
"How did you even get the key to leave it taped in the cage anyway?"  
  
"Secret ninja powers!  That's how I got this key without you noticing," she said, beaming with pride as she pulled the president's key from her sweater cuff and showcased it for him to see.  
  
"What?  Hey!  Give that back!"  Dipper demanded, charging at Mabel.  
  
"No!  I mean, ack!" Her voice cut off as he tackled her.  She fell backwards but rolled on top of him, pinning him down and holding the key out of his grasp.  
  
Dipper reached up anyway and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head down as she chanted "ow ow ow no fair ow ow!"  
  
Dropping the key, she reached down under his arms and tickled, sending him into a fit of laughter.  
  
"Ah!  Ack!  No stop, please!  No fair!"  
  
"Ew, Dipper sweat!" she said, rolling off of him and scrambling like a kitten running on a hardwood floor for the key.  
  
"Oh no you don't!"  He leapt up and over her, straining to beat her to the key.  "Ha ha!" he chuckled triumphantly as he rolled over it and clutched it in his fist.  
  
"What's even the point of sucking up to Stan anymore if you have that dumb key?" Mabel sulked, lifting herself up amid glittering sparks of blue.  
  
"It's symbolic!  We're doing it for Stan's permission to use this room!"  
  
"But it's no fair if I win and you can still get inside!" she said leaping for him again, sending them both careening into the carpet with a shower of sparks.  They didn't notice the electric arcs and crackles as they rolled back and forth, trying to wrestle the key from each other's grasp until, as if lightning hit, the whole world blurred to blinding blue with zap that seemed to displace all of existence for a split second.  
  
  
****  
  
"Physics trivia champion.  Stanford Pines," Stan muttered.  He couldn't help reading inscriptions to himself as he removed trophies, ribbons, and plaques from within and atop the old library card catalog in what was once Ford's room.  He also couldn't help wondering if his brother would ever be able to be a part of the scientific community again.  He'd expressed an interest in it over the years but between the memories Bill had deleted or rearranged and the resulting decimation of his confidence, Stan wondered if he'd even still want to try.  
  
He turned to the sofa and the cardboard box sitting on the closest cushion.  Carefully, he wrapped the plaque in tissue paper and lowered it inside, nestling it between two others.  "Sorry, Ford," he mumbled to himself, "I tried to keep it all the same for you."  He hated the nagging feeling that this was a defeat, that he was losing more and more of Ford's presence in the world with each wrapped and packed away object.  But he couldn't waste time.  He shook it off with a shiver and reached up to the top of the cabinet again, lifting the sheet to pull down another trophy.  Again, he read the engraved words on its base, "Proud Educator's Award.  Fifth grade math.  Stanford Pi-."  
  
The door creaked and he nearly dropped the trophy, fumbling until he caught it.  He held it up as if it was one of his baseball bats, blurting, "What?!  Who's there?!" before the realization hit him and he thought to hide his brother's award behind his back.  
  
The hinges squeaked as the door opened further and, with a snort and several sniffs, Waddles pushed his way through.  
  
"Oh," Stan said in a sigh, tense muscles relaxing until his shoulders sagged.  "It's just you."  He stepped back to the open box and leaned over, wrapping the trophy in tissue paper.  
  
"Oh there you are Mr. Pines," Soos said, peeking his head into what he dubbed the Mystery Shack's new mystery room.  
  
"Huh, what?!" Stan sputtered, standing upright and lifting his hands as if the cops had caught him in the middle of rummaging through a safe again.  "Ow ow ow!" he said, his nose and eyes throbbing from the sudden movement.  
  
"Whoa, you okay there, Mr. Pines?"  
  
"I'd be better if the whole world wasn't bent on giving me a heart attack today," he said reaching into the box to finish fully covering the trophy with tissue paper.  Waddles nudged his leg as if to apologize and rolled over on the carpet for a belly rub that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.  
   
"Whatcha doin, boss?" Soos asked, peering over his shoulder.  "Need some help?"  
  
"Nah, I'm just packing up the old junk in here," he answered, ducking away then stretching on his toes to reach the last object from the top of the cabinet.  He grabbed the sheet, bringing the object down still wrapped inside and stirring up a poof of dust.  He stuffed it into the box, sheet and all, and flipped the lid closed.  
  
Soos coughed and waved his hand in front of his face.  At the sound of a series of snorts, he looked down to find Waddles had rolled back onto his stomach and was burying his nose in the carpet.  "Whoa," he said, "Pretty dusty in here.  Lemme just go get the vacuum and I'll get it fixed up."  
  
"No need, Soos...  Soos!"  Stan called after him but he was already gone.  "At least take the pig with you," he grumbled, glaring down at Waddles as he rolled back and forth on the carpet like it was a puddle of mud.  With a sigh, he opened the box again and dumped the contents of every desk drawer into it as carefully as he could within the two minutes it took Soos to return.  He had just stuffed a crystal pyramid from the desk top and the calendar from the wall inside when he heard heavy footsteps approach the door again.  
  
"don't worry, Mr. Pines," Soos announced, backing through the door with the canister vacuum in tow, the hose wrapped around him, and his arms full of attachments.  "I'll get this place sparkling in no time."  
  
"Uh... Sure," Stan said, reaching for a roll of packing tape.  "Hey Soos?"  He added, barely audible under the tear of tape from the roll.  "Thanks for sticking around to look after the kids last night.  You think you'd be able to again tonight?  I gotta get that safe taken care of before Gideon tries anything again."  
  
"Sure thing, Mr. Pines," he said, dropping the vacuum and all of its accessories beside the liquor cabinet by the door.  "I uh...  hope you don't mind I fell asleep in your chair last night," he added, rubbing his chin.  
   
"Eh.  It's alright.  I saw you cleaned up and vacuumed," Stan said, pressing the tape in place.  The irony didn't escape him as he continued, "Covering up evidence, huh?  
  
"Oh uh, actually no," Soos answered, stepping closer.  "I was gonna talk to you about that.  Something stinks bad in there and I can't figure out what it is."  
  
Stan might have smacked his palm to his face if not for the constant hum of pain in his nose.   _I gotta get Ford's laundry done somehow_ , he thought, remembering how he'd barely been able to close the hidden safe's door last time he shoved more inside.  Part of him nearly let Soos in on the secret right there if only to ask him to help get it done but he thought better of it and said instead, "Heh.  I'll check it out.  Maybe some critter got into the heating vents or something."  
  
"I thought I did hear something clomping around in there for a while but i haven't heard it for a few days."  
  
"Er, yeah.  Probably just a mouse or something," Stan said with a shrug.  He bent down and tried to pick up the box only to hear his back snap before he even got a proper hold on it.  
  
"Yeah, probably," Soos said with a laugh that turned to a concerned, "Hey, let me get that for you."  
  
"No, that's alright.  I can get it.  Just give me a minute...  Or a week or three."  
  
"Alright.  I'll get this cleaned up for Dipper or Mabel or whoever wins the suck-up contest."  
  
"Yeah, thanks," he said, leaning over the box and rubbing the small of his back.  "Speaking of, did you notice anything weird about the kids this afternoon?"  
  
"Weird like how?"  
  
"They started off playing along and sucking up to me and all," Stan said, stretching until his spine let out a series of pops.  "Mabel even made me what was probably the best omelette I ever had in my life.  But then, she gave me a sandwich with rocks in it.  And Dipper almost destroyed the kitchen and was spying on Mabel and her friends.  I mean, I get that he's getting close to that age and all but I always figured he was more, you know, like a book nerd or something."  
  
"Hmm.  I dunno, Mr. Pines.  That does sound whoa-  Watch it little dood," Soos said as waddles hopped to his feet and nearly ran into him as if something had spooked him.  He ran around in a circle and sped back toward Stan, rolling over again at his feet like he was trying to scratch his back on the carpet.  
  
"Ugh!  Waddles!  You've been underfoot for too long," Stan said, backing away from him, "Soos, get him out of here for a while, would ya?"  
  
"Heh heh, sure thing, Mr Pines," Soos said, stepping closer and leaning over him as he rolled on the rug, sending up static sparks.  "Waddles, you got it good, bro. You got no worries. I mean, nobody thinks it's cute when I lie naked on the living room floor."  
  
Stan huffed at the sentiment, partly wishing that image wasn't lodged in his brain now and partly agreeing with it, especially considering the recent weather.  He leaned forward again, positioning himself to lift the box.  
  
"I wish I could be a pig," Soos said, bending over to rub Waddle's exposed belly.  
  
Stan bent his knees and channeled all of his strength into lifting.  Too much.  Like a bucket he expected to be full but had only a few drops inside, the box was a lot lighter than he thought.  He tipped backwards and would have kept falling if Soos hadn't been in just the right place.  The jolt startled him and he swore the world flashed blue, his entire existence fizzing like TV static for a moment.  
  
"Ugh, what the heck was that?" he asked, lifting himself from the floor.  Wait.  Had he fallen?  He thought Soos broke his fall.  And where was the box?  And why could he suddenly take a deep breath through his nose?  He rubbed his head and looked up to find...  
  
"AAAAAH!" a simultaneous scream from himself and Soos melded with the terrified squeal of a pig.  Stan watched in horror as the box dropped from his his...  Or at least, what were usually his hands.   He yelled again, reaching out to stop it only to wince as it crashed to the floor.  
  
  
****  
  
  
Ford laid on his back, listening to the trickle of water from the fountain in the corner garden.  He breathed deeply, counting each inhale and exhale while he kept his eye lightly closed over the throbbing of a headache.  Maybe it was more like an everything ache.  He'd taken the last of the painkillers Stan had left him and couldn't help hoping he'd show up with more soon, even if it was still a little early.    
  
Almost as if some greater force was a step ahead of him, a knock sounded at the door.  
  
"Hey Ford," Stan said, his voice muffled and sounding somehow off.  Hesitant, even.  
  
"Stanley?  Are you alright?" he asked, wincing as he sat up.  "Come on in."  
  
"Heh.  Actually, considering everything, I feel better than I have in forty some odd years," he said, cracking the door open.  "But uh...  I'm gonna come in and uh...  You're gonna promise not to freak out, alright?"  
  
"Um...  Alright?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Qll yxa qexq zxombq afak'q tloh qefoqv vbxop xdl...


	32. Well That's a Swine Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper and Mabel accidentally set Waddles in a human body loose on Gravity Falls. Stan visits Ford to find out why he's having an out-of-body experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh finally. I'm sorry this took so long! I knew the holidays would be busy but didn't expect other things to come up or that I'd have an energy meltdown and multiple writer's blocks that would keep making me feel overwhelmed by trying to think things through and write. But It's getting better now! 
> 
> ~This chapter started to get ludicrously long (36+ pages >_<) so I had to break it into at least two parts, possibly three. It's all written and just needs some editing so expect updates pretty regularly again for a while :D
> 
> ~Only a few mild warnings this time: Some description of sensory discomfort. Some possible humor-based gross out things but nothing the show wouldn't do. It's mostly a fun chapter (except for a bit of Stangst at the end). I even went the G-rated route with Mabel's POV on Stan's puberty lesson where her "goodbye childhood" was more about relating the thought of having babies to adult responsibility, especially now that she's had experience trying to run the shack.
> 
> ~Thanks so much to everyone who checked out and helped me with [ the notes document.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t4XA0sL6w42e1Bv_P--ugSvVkRPCCmYDTWKcFJnBCAw/edit?pli=1#) I'll keep it up to date as chapters are posted. :D
> 
> ~Pronouns for body-swapped people is not something I've worked with before (and I think it's different than sex-swapped since this isn't like they're in a body that's still theirs but with different biology. They're actually in bodies that belong to someone else). I ended up going with their typical pronouns for personal things like thoughts, memories, and actions (ex. if it's Mabel in Dipper's body, I used "she ran" or "she remembered") but used the pronoun matching the body and clothing for anything that referred specifically to them (because, even though the twins are fighting, I imagine they'd want to respect the body they're inhabiting and the clothes they're wearing as still belonging to the other and still being connected to their identity. Ex. "Mabel lifted Dipper's hat" or "She wrapped his arms around his knees." Basically, they realize they're borrowing each other's bodies and want to respect each other's preferred pronouns for them).

Mabel squirmed in the seat of a wooden chair that creaked and wobbled with every move.  She tugged at the collar of her, no, Dipper's T-shirt and flapped it against her, no his?  Chest, begging for any hint of a breeze where the open window offered none.  It wasn't so much the heatwave, she'd dealt with that for the past few days with far less discomfort. It wasn't even that Grunkle Stan was wrapping up an illustrated crash course about puberty.  It was that she was trapped in her brother's body while learning that the same guy who was too nervous to ask Lazy Susan on a date was far more informed about all of this than she ever wanted to imagine.

Sure she'd seen her fair share of not-so-age-appropriate romance novels and maybe she'd even run across some fan fiction that she "accidentally" read but, that was in her own body, her own space, her own comfortable discomfort.  How much of what she was feeling was even her, she wondered.  Was it purely Dipper's body feeling an eruption of heat boiling over from his gut in a cascade of sweat and the burn of blushed cheeks?  Could she really be sure in a situation that had never happened before?  And did Stan's office always seem this closed in?  Did it always smell so strongly of wet cardboard and mildew?  Did that broken down cloning copier under the window always buzz so loud?  She didn't remember this place being like this when she took it over a few weeks ago...

 _And ugh,_ she thought as Stan turned the page in a book titled Why Am I Sweaty to a lesson about testosterone and estrogen.   _Dipper's leg hurts.  And that bandage is itchy and why does my...  His...?  Arm ache...  More than everything else?  Is that from the shots he was babbling about?  From sleeping...  On the ground...  Outside...  No!  That's not my fault!  I didn't make him go outside, he was just being dramatic.  And WHY DOES GRUNKLE STAN EVEN HAVE THIS BOOK?!_    She tried not to rock back and forth and lifted Dipper's shirt collar, wondering why the idea of chewing on it sounded so...  Soothing?

She let it fall back into place and wrapped his arms around his knees, huddling down into his puffy vest and lowering the brim of his hat, finding the comfort comparable to her usual visits to sweater town.

Finally, Stan closed the book and announced, "And now you know where babies come from!"

"Goodbye childhood," she whispered to herself, thankful that at least her voice was still somehow her own…  And that Stan hadn’t seemed to notice.

For every bit of wishing she could just be a grown-up already, she now had an argument for never wanting to age another day.  While her parents had already given her a general idea of what awaited beyond puberty and of how reproduction worked, she'd gained a glance of everyday adult life since then.  Hearing her grunkle, especially while pretending to be "just fine" despite a black eye and broken nose, bring up the topic sent her thoughts spinning.

 _Babies?!  Holding down a job like Stan does, paying Bills, AND being responsible for an entire other life?_ Even with the freedom adulthood promised, it all sounded like too much; or maybe even because of that freedom.  After all, she’d have to deal with whatever resulted from decisions she was solely responsible for…  And make them in the first place!

Her romantic fantasies, thinking about dating and kissing, had always been wishful daydreams but Grenda's mother's novels never talked much about how difficult just making a living could be.  Maybe she had managed to run the Shack and even made enough profit to win the bet with Stan but, it was exhausting and she had to admit, some of her decisions, as Dipper had annoyingly pointed out earlier, weren’t the revolutionary successes she thought they’d be.  Going back to knitting and laying in the sun beside Waddles sounded like paradise after that fiasco.  At least she could unravel her work if she didn’t like the color she chose.

"You know," the gravely but cheerful voice of her grunkle led her away from the vortex of anxiety inside her mind.  "I find you more likable today than usual," he said, patting her, or, as far as he knew, Dipper, on the back.  "Maybe you could still win that game after all," he added, trying to wink only to wince instead.

"Huh?" she said, still dizzy from the centrifuge in her mind.   _Oh right,_ she thought, her focus snapping back to the suck-up game and its prize, Stan's permission to move in to the extra room.  Ever since she'd switched bodies with her brother, they'd been trying to sabotage each other's efforts and she couldn't lose sight of that now.  Though, for a moment, she considered asking Stan about that trophy they'd found...  Except they weren't even supposed to be in the room to find it.

Instead, her heart sank as Stan continued, "I was gonna give that new room to Mabel—"

"No," the word blurted out before she could think, "You should give it to Mabel!"  She paused, searching for a way to insult Stan that would decimate Dipper's chances of winning.  She pointed at him, ready to unleash...  Something, but, between the sight of his blackened eye, her own resistance to intentional, unprovoked unkindness, and the tug of mixed feelings, she fizzled out with, "You... Big jerk!"

Still, Stan's smile sagged.  His brows lowered and jaw clenched as he asked, "What did you say to me?"

"I said, uh," she stuttered, trying again but floundering with, "S-shhut up old man!  Y-you're ff-fat and dumb and you're a dummy and..."  She wound up for a punch, closed her eyes and...  Couldn't do it.  She barely tapped his arm, her "take that" sounding more like a timid question than a forceful threat.

She shrank under his glare, not because of feeling threatened but because of the guilt prodding her like a burning knife stabbed into her gut.

But, despite his still swollen eye and busted nose, Stan smiled.

"Finally Stand'n" up to me, huh?," he said, pride building into a hearty, "Ha ha! I love it!"  He reached into the pocket of his boxers and pulled out the hidden room's key, displaying it like the prize it was and announced, "You know, I made up my mind!  The room belongs to you.  Dipper.  But," he added, pocketing the key again, "You gotta give me a couple minutes to clean it up for you. Then I'll give you the key."

"You can't!  You have to give it to Mabel!" She protested in one last attempt only to have it muffled by the bristling of hairy arms wrapped around her in a bear hug.

"Shhh," he said, patting Dipper's hat.  "You had me at 'shut up old man.'"

 

****

 

Meanwhile, in the attic, Dipper was one more roll of the dice away from finding out if a trip to sweater town was as soothing as Mabel had always made it look.  Her braces felt like static against his…  Or was it her nerves?  The whole room reeked of nail polish and the sweet, plastic-like scent of dollar store perfume but, for some reason, it wasn't as overpowering to him as it usually was.  Not exactly pleasant, still, but not causing him an instant headache.  Wrinkling Mable's nose, he slumped forward in her bean bag, resting her chin heavily against one hand.  He had to admit, though, that there was something comforting about the feeling of long curls draped down her back and shoulders, though he’d always thought the sensation would feel like it was smothering him if he was in his own body.

The dice settled near what looked like a rotary phone that had been dipped in essence of Valentine's Day then plopped in the center of the "Calling All Boys: Preteen Edition" game board.

"Yes!" Grenda shouted and picked up her game piece, counting aloud as she moved it across turquoise squares.  The phone rang and she threw up her hands with and excited, "It's him! My dream date!"  She answered the phony phone with a sappy sounding, "Hello?"

Dipper’s "ugh," drowned below the game's reply, "Hello baby, this is Kevin.  My beach house has room for 2."

It almost made him smile when Candy interrupted with exactly what he was thinking, "Kevin has the voice of a robot."

He jumped when Grenda barked back, "Don't ruin this for me, Candy!" and slammed the handset down.  But, she snapped back to as sweet of a voice as her gruffness could manage and said, "It's your turn, Mabel."

Dipper, however, had already slipped away and barely heard her through the closed door.  "Gotta win the room," he reminded himself and ran all of three steps toward the attic stairs before catching a glimpse of the top of his hat about half-way down.  His shoes scuffed against the steps as Mabel dragged his body closer in a slumpy slouch.

She sighed and lifted the brim of his hat to look up at him.  "It's over, Dipper," she moped, shoving his hands into his pockets.  "Stan gave you the room."

"Ha ha! Yes! Alright!" he shouted.  Mabel's body seemed to act on muscle memory as her foot popped up in response to his joy.  He looked at it as if it had betrayed him and used his, no Mabel's hands to lower it.  He cleared his throat and suggested, "Well, let's switch bodies, then, and I can start moving in."

"Yeah, Grunkle Stan said he was going to..." her words trailed off as her hand brushed against something metallic in Dipper’s pocket.  She pulled it out and opened her palm, finding the president's key there.  "Wait a minute," the words emerged slowly as the thought occurred to her, "You can't have the room...  If you can never get in-"

From somewhere downstairs the squeal of a pig and screams of two men blended into a shack-shaking cacophony.

"What was that?!" Dipper asked, feet clomping against wooden planks as he rushed after Mabel.

Already half-way back down the stairs, she answered, "I don't know but it sounded bad!"  Her voice jumped with each step as she asked, "Where do you think it came from?"

A door slammed and Mabel skidded to a stop in front of Stan's bedroom door.  Dipper collided with her, letting out an "oof" before backing up and straightening out her sweater, skirt, and hair.

"The hidden room!" she realized aloud, "Stan said he was going to clean it."

Dipper sped past her, taunting, "Good, If they're in there, then I can get my body back and start moving in!"

"Oh no you don't!  It was still me in your body when Stan said you could have the room!  That means Stan really gave the room to me," she reasoned, leaping after him and knocking her own body face-first onto the hardwood just before he made it to the stairs to the ground floor.  She reached out and grabbed her body's ankle, trying to be as gentle as she could in pulling it back toward her.

Dipper rolled over and pinned her to the floor, simultaneously glad and annoyed that Mabel’s body housed more strength than his own.  _Probably from carrying Waddles around all the time,_ he thought, making a mental note to keep up with the exercises the Chutzpar had taught him.  Maybe the Manataurs had some messed up ideas of what it meant to be a man but they did have a pretty good work out routine.  As he pinned his own body to the floor, his nose wrinkled at the smell of...  He guessed it must have been himself.  It really had been a while since he washed that shir- "OW!  Ow ow ow ow ouch ow ouch!" he chanted as Mabel grabbed handfuls of her own hair and pulled.

"Like how it feels when someone pulls my hair?!" she said with a vengeful grin.

Dipper managed to yank one handful away and retaliated with the thing he hated most.  Tickles.

"D-Dipper" Mabel squealed between laughter, the sound squeezing out past an almost painful tingle of every nerve, "G-get off!"

"Ha ha, how does that feel?!  Not so funny now, is it?"

Mabel folded his arms and legs in, the same way he did when she tickled him, rolling back and forth to try to escape the sensation.  He took advantage of the opportunity, jumped up, and sped down the stairs.  She leapt up and followed on his heels, tempted to reach out and trip him up except, that was still her body and she didn’t want to find out what would happen if it stumbled over that one broken step, even if it was only the third one up.

Dipper slowed to a stop when he found the hidden room’s door closed.  He reached out to knock but Mabel pushed him aside, the president’s key fitting into the keyhole as if drawn to it by magic.  It turned with a satisfying click and she pulled the door open, ready to dash inside and lock it behind her before Dipper get so much as a toe inside.  She took her first step and…  Ran straight into Stan's legs.

“G-Grunkle Stan…  I just uh,” she stammered, trying to find an excuse for why she was there and how she’d opened the door, all while internally kicking herself for not knocking first.  After all, she was the one who knew he planned on being there. _How could I be so dumb?_

Stan wobbled back a bit with a sound like something was stuck in his throat, squealed, and ran past her, careening down the hall, bouncing off the walls and bracing himself against the floor with his hands every few strides as if he’d never walked on two legs before.

"Grunkle Stan?  Are you-? Ack!"

Mabel staggered back against the door frame as Waddles ran past her, shouting, "No wait, little dude!  Oh no!  Stan's gonna kill me!"

"Pfft, Waddles,” Mabel said, regaining her footing despite the dull ache in Dipper’s leg, “Stan would never kill you, he loves...  You...?”

Dipper watched with wide eyes, lifting a finger as he asked, "Did...  Did Waddles just... Talk?"

"Y-you heard it too?" Mabel said, leaning around him to look down the hall.

"Yeah...  And did Grunkle Stan just…?"

"Squeal like a-,”

They turned to each other with a simultaneous, "Oh no!”

Dipper sped past Mabel and into the room prompting a disgruntled ,”hey!”

“The carpet must have switched them too,” he said, ignoring Mabel’s “duh” as he knelt at the carpet’s edge, lifting it to examine it.  He watched sparks of blue arc across it leading to a cardboard box, tipped on its side in front of the sofa.  A strip of tape barely stuck in bubbles and bunches to one of its open flaps, as if someone had tried to seal the box in such a hurry that the tape didn’t have any hope of ever holding it closed.  Beyond the flap, a sheet had tumbled out and appeared to be draped over something shaped suspiciously like a trophy.

“Mabel, didn’t you say Stan was cleaning up in here?” Dipper asked, reaching out for the sheet.  “He’s obviously trying to hide something and I think we just found it!”

Mabel leaned back into the room and reminded him, "Dipper, we’ll figure that out later.  We have to catch them before Waddles gets Grunkle Stan hurt more than he already is!!"

His “Oh,” sounded more disappointed than he meant it to as he withdrew his hand.  “Can’t we at least switch back our bodies first?”

“Dipper!” her voice grew distant along with the patter of his shoes down the hall.

“Fine," he huffed, following after at top speed despite the near-certainty that she was stalling so she could still convince Stan to give the room to her.

"Grunkle S...  Wadd-  Um...  Grunkle Waddles!!!" she yelled scanning the kitchen for any sign of them.  She jogged into the living room, finding no sign of them there, either.  Across the room, the gift shop door stood ajar, the space between the wall and door appearing darker than usual.

Dipper must have seen it first, judging by the way he ran past her, one hand reaching out to fling the door open.

Behind it, the gift shop was empty and lit only by the afternoon sun streaming through the window and the light inside the snack machine.

“What’s going on?  Where’s Wendy?” Dipper asked, looking in one of the drawers behind the checkout counter as if she might be inside.

“Do you think she went up to the roof again?” Mabel asked, pushing aside the curtain that hid the ladder to the rooftop deck.

“I don’t think so, Mabel.  She’s never closed the shop to go up there before,” Dipper explained.  When no answer came, he looked up from under the counter to find no sign of his body anywhere in the shop.  “Mabel?”  He sighed and reached out for the light switch to get a better look around.   _Ugh,_ he thought.   _Did the fluorescent lights always have that ever so slight but overwhelmingly obnoxious flicker?_ He never remembered seeing that before but it made him want to pull out Mabel’s grappling hook and shatter them all.

“Oh Dipper!”  The voice was faint and muffled, coming from overhead.  “I can see Wendy!  She’s talking to some lady by the picnic tables,” Mabel shouted through the door that led to the roof.  “And there goes Wadd…  Er…  Soos…  Er, Soos in Waddle's body!  Looks like he’s running toward town!  Maybe he’s still following Grunkle Waddles!”  Her voice sounded a lot clearer as she added, “Let’s go!!”

“Gah!” Dipper blurted, barely making it out of the way in time as she slid down the ladder.  “Hey! Watch it! You’re going to get my hands all splintery doing that,” he complained but she was already darting toward the door.  He ran after her, turning off the lights on his way past and taking a moment to lock the door behind them.  The last thing they needed was to leave an invitation for Gideon to rummage through the shack.

From a distance, Dipper could hear Wendy apparently giving directions to a lady wearing a bandanna over her head.  “Yeah, then you take a left at Gravity Malls and it’ll be on your right.”

“Thank you,” the woman said, waving to Wendy and turning to leave.

"Oh, hey guys!  What’s up?” Wendy asked, spotting the kids in her peripheral vision and turning to wave to them.

"W-Wendy!” Dipper sputtered, squirming under her gaze and ready to retreat like a turtle into Mabel’s sweater.  “Hey... uh Hi."

"Hey Wendy!  Don’t suppose you saw Grunkle Stan run by here, huh?” Mabel asked.

“No, I haven't seen him since this morning.  He looked pretty rough, though.  Is he feeling alright?  Soos just told me he said to go ahead and lock up the gift shop and go home.  He’s never told me to close up the shop early before."

"Well, no,” Dipper answered, realizing he was twirling Mabel’s hair around his finger and smacked it away.  “He’s not alright but, probably not in the way you're thinking of."

"Yeah he kinda switched bodies with Waddles,” Mabel explained, “and we might have accidentally let him loose and now we gotta go find him!"

“We?”  Dipper asked with a raised brow.

“Yes.  You wanted to get to that room just as much as I did,” she snapped back.

"Whoa what now?" Wendy interrupted.

"Heh heh" Dipper, tried to answer but managed nothing aside from a series of sounds that didn’t even try to be words.

“You two are acting weird, what’s going on?”  Wendy asked leaning down to look at Dipper in Mabel’s body.

He backed away, nearly tripping over a rock and laughing awkwardly.

Mabel rolled Dipper’s eyes and answered, “We’ll explain later.  I saw Soos, in Waddles’s body, running toward town and probably chasing after Waddles, in Grunle Stan’s body.  Can you help us find them?”

"I want nothing more in the world right now,” she said with a mischievous smile, “I gotta get pictures of this.  It’s blackmail gold!”

 

****

 

Ford laid on his back, listening to the trickle of water from the fountain in the corner garden.  He breathed deeply, counting each inhale and exhale while he kept his eye lightly closed over the throbbing of a headache.  Maybe it was more like an everything ache.  He'd taken the last of the painkillers Stan had left him and couldn't help hoping he'd show up with more soon, even if it was still a little early.

Almost as if some greater force was a step ahead of him, a knock sounded at the door.

"Hey Ford," Stan said, his voice muffled and hesitant.

"Stanley?  Are you alright?" he asked, wincing as he sat up.  "Come on in."

"Heh.  Actually, considering everything, I feel better than I have in forty some odd years," he replied, cracking the door open.  "But uh...  I'm gonna come in and uh...  You're gonna promise not to freak out, alright?"

"Um...  Alright?"  Ford tentatively agreed.  “Why would I ‘freak out?’”

“I don’t exactly look like myself right now.  In fact, I look like…  Shit” he paused, glancing down at Soos’s work worn but not timeworn hands and the question mark T-shirt he wore in almost every photo Ford had seen of him.  His initial panic over seeing a pig piloting his body drained like soda from an overturned glass but, it was as if someone immediately turned it upright it and filled it with a different flavor.

“Well, you do have that black eye and all,” Ford answered in an empathetic tone, pausing for an “oof” as he used the bars for leverage to lift himself to his feet.  “No one could expect you to look-”

“It’s not that.  I mean…  Actually I look pretty good right now, considering, but this was a bad idea.  You just spilled your guts to me last night about how you don’t want to lose me and if I come in looking like…  Like _this_ , you’re gonna think it happened.”

“Stanley?” he said with trepidation, hands draping over the horizontal support bar.  “What on earth is going on?”

He gave a sigh that sounded like it was wrung through a pepper mill and answered, “I uh.  I’m stuck in Soos’s body.”

“You’re what?!”

“I…” Stan began, easing the door open.  He winced as he stepped into the light, as if it might somehow dampen Ford’s potential panic.  “I don’t know how it happened and I was hoping maybe you might.”

Though logic told him Stan was telling the truth, Ford’s heart felt like it dropped to the soles of his feet and he was certain it dragged the color from his face with it.  His jaw hung agape as he tried not to…  He wasn’t even sure what.  Yell?  Sob?  Laugh?  Was that really still Stanley despite the youthful face and…  Was that stubble glued on?

"Ford.  FORD!  I swear, Ford, it's me,” Stan insisted, letting the door swing open as he reached out like he meant to rest his hands on his brother’s shoulders in a gesture of reassurance.  “Well, I mean…” he added, dropping his arms to his sides and tugging at the t-shirt’s hem, lifting it out to both examine it himself and illustrate his point.  "You know... Not exactly but...  Can't you," he cleared his throat and continued, as if trying to accentuate his gravelly voice, "Can't you tell by my voice?"

"I've never heard your or...  Mr. Ramirez's?  Voice so how would I know?” he answered, his own voice boiling over as if set upon a flame of worry.  He stepped back from the bars, pacing to and fro with one hand supporting his elbow and the other massaging the pain behind his eyes as he rambled,  “You...  Or maybe not you...  Stanley practically raised Soos...  Or you.  So there's a chance it could be the same-ish.  Ah-” he gasped as his leg cramped up.  He bent over, hissing as he tried to massage it.

“You okay there?” Stan asked, stepping closer to the bars for a better look at his twin.

Ford’s hair was ruffled with one lock standing straight up near the back of his head and a darkened circle underscored his good eye.  Since Stan had officially run out of fresh clothes for him, he’d let him borrow his brand new set of flannel pajamas, a gray print he’d been saving for winter.  As he paced, the shirt billowed out around him and the pants almost looked like a skirt, gathered at the waist, but, at least something was better than nothing.

“I-” Ford grunted, flexing his foot and toes in an effort to relieve the cramp, “I’m fine, just sore from whatever Bill did last night.  You wouldn’t happen to have any painkillers handy, would you?”

“Uh yeah, might still be a few in the trunk here,” he answered, turning toward it.  “Anyway,” he added, pushing aside a box of bandages and a set of medial restraints.  “Even if I was Soos,” a grunt cut his words short as, thanks to Soos’s shorter legs, he nearly tumbled headfirst into the trunk.  Regaining his balance, he managed to reach the bottle of Releve tangled in the straps of a straitjacket.  He lifted himself up, shaking the last few pills around in the bottle, and continued, “Why would I lie to you?"

"I don't know, maybe Stanley asked you to so I wouldn't, as you put it, ‘freak out,’" he said, turning to give him an air quote gesture that made Stan think he could pick Ford out even if he ended up in the body of a plaidypus.

"Sure sure, looks like that idea worked...  Not at all.  Though I gotta say I'm kinda flattered you freaked out even after I warned ya,” he said, hunching over and scratching his bottom, bringing to mind the image of his usual posture, clad in boxers and an undershirt with the pill bottle clutched in his hand the same way he held a soda can.

"Stanley...?" he said, squinting through the bars.  "It... It is you, isn't it?  But how?"

"I don’t know!  Like I said, that’s why I’m here,” he answered, shaking out two pills and handing them through the bars.  “You need some wat...” his words trailed off as Ford swallowed the pills dry.  “Nevermind.”

“Okay.  Alright.  We’ll figure this out,” Ford said, pinching his nose like it might help ease the throbbing in his head while he waited for the Releve to kick in.  “Why don’t you tell me what you were doing when this happened.”

“Well, I'd say don't freak out but we both know how well that went the first time so, I'm just gonna say it.  I got a feeling it has something to do with Soos and the kids finding your room."

"My room?"

Ford’s question went unheard as Stan went on, "It was sealed off behind that bookcase but Soos moved it to vacuum and I'm sorry, I tried to keep it exactly the same so it would all be how you remember it-"

"Stanley-"

Again, Stan either didn’t hear or didn’t pay attention.  He paced back and forth, his hands flying out in wide gestures while his words spilled out faster.  "I mean, you know, I wanted you to still have that space to come back to but now I've had to pack it all up and-  Oh man-"

"Stanley!"

He babbled on, his tone sounding increasingly worried, "And I promise I'll put it all back when the kids go back home but...  But I oh how can I even say this-"

"STANLEY!"

His pacing screeched to a halt and he looked up to find Ford's expression softer than he'd expected.  Concerned for him, even.

"Who's freaking out now?" he joked with a warm lift of his lips.

"Well, I mean...  Can you blame me?”  Stan rambled on, “ I'm stuck in someone else's body, not that I'm complaining too much about that part, it's nice to have knees that work again and teeth that don't accidentally fly out of my mouth if I cough or laugh too hard, but, there's a pig in my body and I don't know how long Soos, in the pig's body, can keep him locked up in your room and to top it all off, now, not only do I not know how much the kids saw in your room, but they...  Or one of them...  Wants to use it for the rest of the summer!  It's a miracle I got them out of there before they got a good look at your trophies and stuff.  And I did manage to get it packed up but when this body swap nonsense happened, I sort of…  Or I guess Waddles…  Dropped the box and now I don’t know how much of your stuff is broken and I really don't know how much more I can lie to the kids and...  And why are you still so calm?"

Ford blinked, unsure if he even understood everything his brother had just rattled off and at a loss for how to process it.  "Wow..." he answered, "That certainly is a lot to unpack...  Let's start with this...  Did I hear right that you said there is currently a pig in your body?"

"Those are words I never dreamed I'd say - and this is coming from a guy who tried to scare some kids by pretending a pig tore its way out of my gut - but yeah.  That."

"And should I assume you were in my room when this happened?" Ford asked, leaning on the horizontal support bar and tilting his head to get a better look at his brother’s consciousness trapped inside another man’s body.  If he wasn’t afraid of what Bill might do, he would have asked to examine him closer, as well as the pig and Mr. Ramirez.  Even so, he wished he had a pen and at least some scrap paper to take notes.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask approximately a million more questions, Stan held up Soos’s hand, stopping him with, "Whoa there, one at a time.  Yeah. We were all in your room and I was packing your stuff up."

“And what exactly…  I’m sorry, Stanley but would you mind handing me a crayon and some paper?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stan said, turning toward the bookcase.  He dug out a mostly unused crayon with a dull purple shade and handed it to Ford along with a sheet of paper taped to piece of cardboard that was starting to bend in the center.

“Alright,” he said, scribbling down notes about who had switched bodies with whom.  “Now, what were the events that led to this incident?”

“Soos was vacuuming and Waddles was in the way,” Stan explained, reaching up to scratch Soos’s head and accidentally tipping his cap off.  Misjudging its size for that of his fez, he fumbled his first attempt to catch it but, as it tumbled down, he surprised himself, snatching it from midair.  Soos’s body might have felt awkward but there was something to be said for his reflexes.  Placing the cap back on his head, he continued, “So I asked Soos to take care of it and when he went to shoo him off, I stumbled backwards into them.  There was this zapping sound and everything tasted tingly and blue.  It felt like the world hiccupped then, bam.  I'm in this body and mine's rolling around on the floor squealing.  Probably cause that pig has no idea how much a broken nose hurts."

“Fascinating!” Ford said, finishing a doodle of the Stan, Soos, and Waddles arranged in a circle with arrows indicating the switches Stan described.  He jotted down a summary of Stan’s statement and looked up, tapping his chin with the end of the crayon.  "If my theory is correct then…  It…  It worked.  It actually worked!" Ford said with a twinkle in his eye that Stan hadn't seen since they ran across a butterfly the size of a moose back in 1989.

He suppressed a snicker at the sight, considering the giant eye on his eye patch made him look like a character from one of those, _what did Mabel call those cartoons she watches?  Annie-somethings?_  

"The Electron Carpet was a success after all!" Ford beamed.  He paced as he pondered everything that implied, tapping the crayon against the writing board and lifting it to tap his chin every so often.

He muttered possible other causes, something about a time anomaly and something else about a temporary distortion of reality, debunking each as it came up until Stan, with a flattened brow, grumbled, "I'm glad you're happy about this..." and leaned over the horizontal bar, his head resting against two vertical ones.

"My apologies,” he said, slowing his pacing to a stop and rubbing his forehead as his headache refused to relent.  “It's just, this is incredible.  I’m certain it must have been the carpet.  I ended up making use of it in my room since, even if it failed as an experiment, it still worked as a rug."

"Honestly I don't think it even did that," Stan said, wrinkling Soos’s mouth in disgust.

"Are you implying I have bad taste?"

"I'm stating it outright,” Stan said flatly.  “Seriously, that thing is hideous."

"Humph.  Well I thought it tied the room together nicely," he defended, crossing his arms over the writing board, pressing it to his chest, and lifting his nose in a mockery of snootiness.

"Yeah, a nerd room," he teased, cracking a smile.

"If it did work, though,” he said, rubbing his chin, “Why, did it take all of these years?  Did it need to build up a charge?”

"Charge...?" Stan questioned with a quirked brow, "Um.  What?  WHAT?”  He backed away from the bars, pinching his nose.  “Wait wait wait.  Does that mean it might die and need to charge for thirty some-odd years again?"

"I...  Well, I can't say,” Ford admitted, rotating and rubbing his shoulders in an attempt to ease the soreness out.  “I suppose it's possible that it would only work so many times before needing to charge again.  I never had the opportunity to test it and find out."

"You...  You're kidding me, right?  I can't get stuck like this,” Stan ranted, gesturing to the body he was currently borrowing.  “I mean it's great being able to move without everything making noises it probably shouldn't but there's still a pig in my body!  And maybe mine’s got its issues but it’s mine and I’m kinda attached to it!  And to top it off, I'm pretty sure the kids got switched somehow too.  They've been acting weird all day."

“Oh, that’s probably not good,” he agreed, tapping the crayon against the writing board in a rapid pace.

“Yeah, I mean, I wanted to give the room to Dipper ‘cause he’s been having a rough time lately and feels like I’ve been taking Mabel’s side on a lot of stuff.  And maybe...  I kinda have.  So I set up a game where they had to suck up to me and they started off doing just that.  Then it suddenly seemed like they were out to get me and when I told Dipper he won the room, he said I needed to give it to Mabel…  In a voice that wasn’t as squeaky as his usually is.”

Ford scribbled notes on the page, his voice somewhat distant as he recommended, “You have to get back up there and make sure everyone returns to their own bodies safely.”  He paced again wagging the crayon as he spoke, “If the carpet does indeed work, you should be able to switch back by shuffling your feet on it to build up a charge then touching the person with whom you swapped bodies.”  He paused, looking through the bars to find Stanley staring blankly at some point near the base of the bars.  While his gestures earlier had brought his true appearance to Ford’s mind, the way he shuffled Soos’s feet and rubbed the back of his neck looked…  Soos-ish, or at least he thought so from what he’d seen of the handyman from the security camera’s view of the gift shop entrance.  “Stanley?” he asked, drawing his brother’s gaze up but not completely back into focus.  “What’s wrong?”

“I just…” he said with a shrug, “I can’t figure out when the kids would have gotten in your room to swap bodies.  I locked it.  Do you think anything else might have caused it?”

“Is there a possibility that they broke into the room?” Ford asked with a raised brow.  
  
“Heh…” Stan said with a growing smile, “That’s exactly what you and I would have done if Ma or Pa tried to lock us out of a mystery room, isn’t it?”

“You, maybe,” he quipped, pointing the crayon’s blunt end at Stan.

“Yeah and you wouldn’t try too hard to stop me, either, Mr. ‘keep going, I thought I heard it click.’”

“Fair point,” Ford conceded with a laugh.

“Yeah…” Stan agreed, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”  His smile fell flat as he realized, “But, if they did break in and saw your trophies before I got ‘em packed up, I don’t know how I’m gonna explain it.”

“Tell them they’re yours,” Ford suggested, aiming for no emotion in his tone but fearing some hint of resignation broke through.  “Shermie and the rest of the family believe you’re me anyway.”

“Yeah…” Stan said with a sigh, signaling for Ford to hand the crayon and paper back to him.  “I guess we may as well keep the lie consistent, huh?”

He wished he could hang onto them a little longer but his worry that Bill might make him eat them or something outweighed his desire to jot down more thoughts.  He handed it over with a muttered answer, “May as well.”

Stan placed them on the trunk’s top, a silent promise to return them to Ford again as soon as possible.  “I…”  He turned back and blurted, “Ford. I’m sorry.  I’m sorry they found everything and it’s all being changed and it feels like I’m losing more of you to this damn basement.  I’m sorry the box of your stuff dropped.  I’m sorry I don’t know how much of it broke.  I’m sorry-”

“Stan,” Ford interrupted, holding his hands up in a signal for him to calm down.  “It’s alright. Just…  Hurry back upstairs and get everyone switched back.”

“I…”

“What are you waiting for, a kiss on the cheek?!  Go!” Ford ordered with a finger pointed at the door and a forced sternness he hoped Stan wouldn’t see right through.

His hesitant, “A-Alright,” made Ford question his success but either it was convincing enough to satisfy him or the emergency at hand took priority.  Whatever it was, he was thankful as Stan stepped through the door and it clicked shut behind him.

He exhaled slowly as he turned away from the bars.  With each step, his toes dragged against the padded floor, the legs of Stan’s pajama bottoms dragging around his feet.   _At least the painkillers kicked in_ , he thought in a desperate attempt to mow down the thoughts trying to take root in his mind.  He raked his hand through his hair, holding it between his curls for a moment and inhaling deeply.  His hand flopped to his side as he exhaled.  He rolled up the baggy sleeve draped around it and thrust his fist against the padded wall once, twice, three times.

“I hope it all broke,” he murmured, resting his forehead against the wall.  He tapped his fist against it again, weakly this time, and slid to the floor, leaning back into the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jrrg mre oblqj brxu zdb rxw ri wkdw rqh, Pdf...
> 
> ~[ Past end notes decoded here. ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)
> 
> ~That bit about Ford not knowing the difference between Stan and Soos's voices is a little nod to Alex being the voice actor for both.


	33. Creating a Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy try to track down Waddles before he can cause any more injuries to Stan's body but they find that his physical health isn't the only thing at stake. Stan returns from his visit with Ford to find more than one unpleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Same warnings as last chapter (since they were written when this was one monster chapter). Some sensory discomfort, some possible (mild, nothing the show wouldn't do) gross-out moments. Still mostly an action/semi-fun chapter with a bit of Stangst at the end.
> 
> ~Special thanks to [ KillHitlerAgain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillHitlerAgain) for beta reading! 
> 
> ~If anyone feels up to it, can I ask for a favor? Over the years, I've found some of the most helpful feedback for writing is a simple one or two sentence summary of what the reader just read. It can be something super simplified or silly or sarcastic, even. Basically, It helps me see if what I meant to write is what happened or not, since it's hard to tell from the POV of knowing what it's supposed to be. I'd love to see some comments with reader interpretation if anyone would like to share their perspective :D (I'd also be interested to know if this helps other writers as well. If it does, maybe I can start leaving something like that in comments too.)
> 
> ~[The notes doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t4XA0sL6w42e1Bv_P--ugSvVkRPCCmYDTWKcFJnBCAw/edit#) is still being kept up to date if anyone is interested in checking it out. (Oh man this is so much easier to write now that it exists and I can refer to it when my memory decides not to work or brain decides to be non-functional.) After this chapter, I'll start throwing the link into the end notes.

Under a thinning canopy of pine needles and diminishing patches of shade, Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy jogged toward the downtown area, following what Wendy had pointed out as pig tracks and what they hoped was the silhouette of Waddles's body - piloted by Soos - galloping in that general direction.

Mabel fell behind, pausing at the sight of something fuzzy caught in a bramble of bush.  "Hey dipper," she called out, bending over to examine it, "look!"  

"Is that?" Dipper asked, poking the object with a stick, "one of Stan's slippers?"

"Yup.  I know 'cause I was going to use it for hole 13 of our golf course but, he gave me his empty Gringles chip can instead."

"Well, that explains this," Dipper said, pointing to a set of footprints formed from a bare foot and a slipper.  He followed them along a path cleared through the undergrowth, running beside them with Wendy and Mabel on his heels until they reached a break in the brick fence behind Barrel and Crate.

They climbed over the rubble and sped through the alley, their stamina slipping away exponentially with each step.  By the time they turned onto Northwest Street, they'd dragged to a stop.

Wendy rested her hand on the brick facade of Barrel and Crate, bending over to catch her breath.  Dipper leaned against the bricks, clutching at Mabel's sweater and ready to strip down to the tank top below it.  Mabel squished into the strip of shade cast by a lamp post, trying to escape the heat seeping through the soles of Dipper's shoes from the sidewalk underfoot.

"So," Wendy began, breathlessness forcing a pause before she could ask, "Let me get something straight, here.  That carpet somehow made you two switch bodies.  Waddles is in Stan's body and Soos is in Waddles's body, right?"

"R-right," Dipper gasped, pressing himself closer to the building and the thin line of shade at its base.

"Does that mean that when Soos told me to close the gift shop and go home, that was actually Stan in Soos's body?" she asked, pushing her hair behind her ear and lifting herself back to her full height.

"I...  Hadn't thought of that," Dipper admitted, "It must have been.  Did you see where he went?"

"Man," she said, shrugging off her flannel and tying it around her waist, "that explains why I thought it sounded like Soos was getting a sore throat.  But no, I didn’t see.  He just said," she paused to alter her voice to her best impression of Stan pretending to be Soos, "'Hey, Wendy.  Stan said to close up for the day.'"  She switched back to her own voice and continued with a shrug, "And who am I to question that?  So, I said 'whatever' and headed for the door.  When I turned around to say, 'see you later', he was already go-" she cut herself off as she spotted her boss's pig-possessed body.  Or, at least, his boxers and legs. "Look, There!  It's Sta-  Er…  Waddl-  Er...  WaddleStan?"

"Waddlestan?  No no no," Mabel scolded playfully, leaning around the lamp post to see where Wendy was pointing.  "That's the name of the dust bunny kingdom Waddles rules.  It’s under Dipper's bed.  Grunkle Waddles is what we’ve been calling-  Oh no!” she interrupted herself as she saw Stan's body bent over a display of apples outside of Gravity Fruits Market, his torso half-buried in them.  "No no no no, Waddles! Don’t!"

"Under _my_ bed?" Dipper questioned, turning to see Waddles lift Stan's feet and climb deeper into the apple display, his remaining slipper sliding off.  "Oh no! Waddles!"

A startled but muffled squeal sounded as the market's doors slid open in a squeaky rumble of derelict parts.  Tyler stepped through with a tote slung over his shoulder, humming to himself and gasped at the sight of a boxer-clad bottom sticking out of the display.  Waddles shook Stan's head loose from among the apples and lifted it, displaying his black eye the apple stuffed between his teeth for the town to see.

"O-oh my, isn't that the mystery guy who runs that tourist trap just outside of town?" Tyler asked, covering his mouth with both hands, the tote slipping down to his elbow.

Across the street, an elderly woman leaned in close to Lazy Susan as if she meant to whisper, but her, "Isn’t that the guy you went out with, Susan?" came out as a shout so loud that Dipper and Mabel both winced along with Susan.

"Ha ha, no.  I've never seen him before in my life," she answered, edging toward the entrance to the hair salon only to back away at the sight of several faces looking out at the spectacle.

"Yeah, I'm sure that was him.  You know, I swear I saw him trying to teach a bear to drive the other day.  I think you dodged a bullet when you two broke up," the woman said, leaning on her cane and shaking her head at the shameful sight.

"My my," Bud drawled, sauntering up to the fruit display.  "Stanford Pines," he paused for a series of tsks and, in a melodramatic shade of concern, added, "You look just awful.  Now, is there any little old thing me or my boy could do to help-"

Waddles squealed, spitting out the half-eaten apple and pawing at Stan's nose and blackened eye.  He knocked Bud's straw hat off, nearly smacking him in the face with his flailing hands.

Dipper resisted the urge to laugh as Bud bent over for his hat and Waddles bumped into him, nearly sending him rolling rear-over-head, as he turned and ran away on all fours.  "After them!" he commanded, already following his own orders.

"Hey, y'all might want to get that uncle of yours to a doctor," Bud suggested, replacing his hat on his head and shaking his fist at them as they sped by.  "That kinda behavior ain’t polite, ya' know!"

As they reached the corner leading to Northwest Avenue, Mabel slowed to a stop, leaning heavily against a bus stop bench.  "Wait, Dipper...." she said, panting, "your dumb leg is hurting, I need to stop for a minute."

"Maybe...”  He turned toward her with crossed arms and continued in a sarcastic tone, "it wouldn't be hurting if someone hadn't been screeching in our room all last night."

"Ugh!  Not again with this!" she snapped jabbing a finger in his direction, "I already said it's not my fault you thought sleeping outside was a good idea!"

"Well it's not my fault that I could still hear you and your friends in every room of the house!"

"Guys," Wendy interrupted, stepping between them, "You gotta focus."

Mabel gasped and pointed to Butcher's Bakery where Waddles pressed Stan's face against the glass, apparently trying to eat an oatmeal muffin through it.

Wendy looked up and let out a grumbled, "Oh no, not now," as she spotted her friends turning the corner a block away.

Thompson was apparently trying to walk backwards while balancing two stacked cartons of eggs on his head while Nate and Robbie chanted, "Thompson, Thompson," and Tambry took photos with her phone.

"Whoa!  Tambry, check it out!" Robbie said, pointing to Waddles who was dragging Stan's tongue across the window, stopping to chew on the faux greenery in the window box.

"Ew Gross.  Isn't that the guy Wendy works for?" she asked, seeing him only through the image on her phone as she snapped photos.  "Is he like, lost or something?"

"You think we should, I dunno, call someone?" Nate asked, with a shrug.

"Like the cops?" Thompson asked, tipping back and forth to keep the eggs balanced on his head.  “No… Nooawww! Oh man…” He griped as both boxes fell to the ground and eggs cracked open around his feet.

Waddles turned toward the noise, squealed, and dove to the ground, sniffing at the mess.

"Grunkle…  Um Waddles!"  Dipper shouted, trying to run toward him only to slam into the back of Toby as he jumped out of a trash can.

"Now that's something you don’t see everyday," Toby said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a shoe box with a paper cup taped to one end to mimic the shape of a video camera.

"Step aside," Shandra demanded, popping up out of the bushes planted in front of Baker's Butcher Shop, "and let a real reporter-"

Dipper let out an, "Argh!" tugging at handfuls of curls in frustration as he barked, “Get out of the way-"

"Dude!" Soos yelled, galloping out of the alley between Biff's Buffet and the Trash to Treasure thrift shop in a clatter of hooves against the sidewalk.  "There you are! Let's get you back home, little… Or maybe it's big dude?"

Waddles looked up and squealed at the sight of Soos in his pink, round body…  Or maybe it was the sight of Mrs. Baker stepping outside with a butcher knife in her hand.  Either way, he ran with speed and agility no one knew Stan's body was capable of, skidding around the corner onto Northwest Road with Soos chasing after.

"No!  Come back!" Dipper yelled, running after them with Mabel right beside.

Shandra and her cameraman followed behind with their camera rolling.  Despite the quick pace, her voice remained relatively smooth as she reported, "We’re coming to you live from the corner of Northwest Avenue and Northwest Road with coverage of a man who assaulted an apple display, licked the bakery window, and-"

"Wait for me!" Toby begged, stumbling after.  "I just want to be a part of things…"

Wendy grabbed his collar, plucked him from his feet, and plopped him into the next trash can.  As she ran past her friends, she waved and shouted, "Hey, guys!"

"Oh hey, Wendy!" Robbie replied, trying to lean back against the Bakery's Muffy the Muffin Mascot statue only to lose his balance as it tipped backwards and fell to the sidewalk with a hollow clatter like a plastic cup dropped on a tile floor.  He stumbled but regained his composure and shouted after her, "Escaped the grind early, huh?  Wanna hang out with us?"

"I can't right now," she answered, chasing after Shandra, Dipper, and Mabel.

"Later, then?  I’ll pick you up at seven?"

"Yeah sure, sounds good!" Wendy agreed and sped up, passing Shandra and her cameraman.

Mabel heard Dipper grumble something to himself, his pace slowing in tandem.

"Dipper, not now," she hissed to him, snapping him back to reality with her added yell, "Grunkle Waddles!  Wait!"

Soos glanced behind him, looking for the source of Mabel's voice only to find… "Dipper?"

"No it’s me, Mabel." she answered, catching up to him.  "Dipper and I got switched too.  Where’s Stan…  Or um, Stan in your body?   SooStan?  Grunkle Soos?"

"Ha ha those are funny names," Soos said with a laugh.  "Do mine!"

"Uh…  Soodles?  No, that sounds like soggy noodles.  WaddleSoos?"

"WaddleSoos.  I like it!” he beamed.  “Grunkle Soos, ha ha, ‘s weird sayin’ my own name like that.  Anyway, he went to figure out how we ended up all body swapped and how to fix it.  He locked me in the room with er-"

"Grunkle Waddles?" Mabel prompted.

"Ha ha, yeah him," Soos chuckled.  His tone slumped into shame as he added, "I was supposed to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble.  Guess I really messed that up, huh?"

"Oh, Soo- er WaddleSoos…  We’re sorry we opened the door and let him out-"

"Guys, hurry!," Dipper commanded, catching up to them and trying to keep his eye on their grunkle's body as it neared Northwest Place.  "He’s getting away!"

The stampede of family, friends, and news station staff followed him around the corner but he'd somehow managed to vanish somewhere between the storefronts and the line of trees beyond the road's dead end.

"Ugh!  How does he make that old Geezer's body move so fast?" Wendy asked, slowing to a stroll as she passed the Outdoor Outlet.

Shandra seemed unfazed by the run as she stepped in front of the camera with perfect hair and not a drop of sweat on her face.  She announced, "It appears we have lost sight of the man gone wild for now but we're coming to you live with witnesses of the event.  Excuse me, young lady, do you know this man-?" she asked, holding her microphone in front of Wendy.

"Yeah.  His name is mind-your-own-business and he's my go-find-someone-else-to-harass!" she answered, pointing for her to leave.

"Where could he have gone?" Mabel fretted, scanning the planters and storefronts for any sign of him.

"Don’t worry," Soos said, "Maybe I can follow his scent with my adorable pig no-ooooh!"  He gasped, eyes wide and sparkling as he spotted a mud puddle in front of the bowling alley.  "Do I dare live the dream?"

"Did that pig just talk?" Shandra asked, pointing to the round body wagging its butt in excitement.  
  
“I dunno, maybe?" Dipper answered.  "You should probably get some footage and find out."

"Brilliant, this is brilliant!  Get that camera rolling!" she ordered, tugging at her cameraman's shirt.

He fumbled to obey, failing to swing the camera around in time to catch an image of the pig's body as Soos said, "I'll catch up to you dudes in a minute!"

Soos performed his best impression of a pig squealing and dove between Shandra and the cameraman.

"Whoa whoa!" the cameraman shouted, trying to keep his footing only to tumble into the puddle alongside Soos, splashing slightly green sludge up and over Shandra.

In the moment of distraction, Dipper signaled for the others to follow him past the line of trees at the end of the road.  Once hidden under the cover of pine needles and parched brush, Dipper peeked back down the street to find Soos rolling back and forth and the cameraman beating his fist against a drenched and apparently non-functional camera.

"Well," he said with a shrug, "At least Soos helped get them out of our hair.  And, I guess it's not every day you get the chance to live one of your dreams, right?"

"Fair enough," Wendy said, returning his shrug.

"That’s fair," Mabel added simultaneously.  "But, how are we going to find Grunkle Waddles again?"

"Hmm," Dipper hummed.  "Ah!  Excuse me," he said, reaching out to Mabel and into his vest's pocket.

"Hey, what?" Mabel snipped, trying to jerk away.

He pulled out a pen and started clicking it repeatedly in an attempt to help himself think.

"Oh," Mabel said, confused that she found the clicking sound somehow soothing.  She had to hold back from reaching out for the pen to try it and found herself patting down Dipper's pockets, searching for another to satisfy the unfamiliar craving to at least chew on it.

Dipper stopped clicking, wondering why the noise was…  The opposite of helpful; why the sensation of it grated on his nerves like the ever-present buzz of the braces in Mabel's mouth, almost amplifying the sensation.  "Well, that didn’t help," he moped, handing the pen back.

"Maybe it didn’t help you," Mabel muttered, pocketing it but keeping a hand wrapped around it until she found herself clicking it at an increasing pace.

"If I were a pig," Dipper wondered aloud, "stuck in a human body that's riddled with aches and pains…"  He interrupted himself with a snapped, "Mabel, will you stop clicking that thing, already?!"

"Huh?  Oh..." she stopped for a minute, trying to release it, but, without thinking, she pulled it out again, raised it, and bit down on it.

Dipper repeated himself, "If I were Waddles, where would I go?"

"Where would a pig feel comfortable?" Wendy added, leaning against a tree trunk.

Mabel gasped and lowered the pen to announce, "Sprott’s farm!  He was born there!" 

"Yes!  The farm!" he agreed, "Let’s go!"

 

****

 

At the corner of Northwest Road and Northwest Place, Deputy Durland watched over the town from the driver's seat of Sheriff Blubs's car.  He rolled down the windows to air out the lingering smell of McTaco Hut pizza-burger burritos and stale coffee while Sheriff Blubs unfurled the latest Gravity Falls Gossiper and flipped straight to the comics and games.

Durland dozed off, leaning back against his seat until a voice somewhere nearby snapped him back to attention with a disgruntled shout, "I can't believe you didn’t bring another camera!"

He looked up to see a muddied Shandra Jimenez arguing with what looked like a swamp monster across the street while.

"Where was I supposed to carry another whole camera?!"

"I don’t know, where does Toby keep those fake ones he pulls out of nowhere?"

He shrugged and leaned back again as the two crossed the street and their arguing fell silent behind the news station's sliding doors.  Just as a nap tried to creep up on him, a yelled, "No, Don't eat me! I'm a man trapped in a pig's body!" scared it away.

"That’s what they all say!"  Another voice shouted, somewhere to his right.

He wouldn't have believed it if he didn't see and hear it himself when a pig ran in front of the vehicle yelling, "Help!  Police!" followed by a blurred figure with what looked like a pointed hat and a beard that draped past their toes.  Durland's hands gripped the wheel as he shouted, "Ah!  A bearded witch chasing a talking pig!"

Sheriff Blubs lowered his newspaper and, in a satisfied tone said, "My horoscope came true."

Durland's hands eased off of the wheel at the sight of Blubs's smile.  "Now read mine!" he said, forgetting completely about the disturbing event he probably just imagined.

"What are you, Gemini?"

"You knew?"

"Yeah, of course I-"

A buzz of static over the radio interrupted him followed by a female voice announcing, "Be on the look-out for an elderly man, name Stanford Pines, disturbing the town.  Seems lost and confused."

"Huh, guess the poor old guy finally lost his marbles," Blubs said with a tsk, shaking his head.

"Marbles?  I got lotsa those at home.  I wonder if any of them were his?"

"Heh heh, you are a real peach," Blubs said, patting Durland on the shoulder.

The radio buzzed again, this time with direct orders, "Sheriff Blubs, we have a reported sighting of Stanford Pines at Sprott's Farm.  Repeat, Stanford Pines is harassing the pigs at Sprott’s Farm."

 

 

****

 

 

"There!  Hurry!" Wendy's attempted shout came out in an airy gasp as she tried to point up the side of a hill and ended up bent over, struggling to catch her breath.  Her hair flopped over her shoulder in a tangle with leaves and twigs caught between the strands.  Part of her was glad they'd made it through the woods, if only to have that portion of the trek behind them but part of her wanted to murder the sun as it beat down on her back.  "Argh, sun!  What did we ever do to you to make you hate us so much!" she tried to yell and shake her fist at the sky but as she lifted her head, sweat dripped into her eyes, stinging and forcing them shut.

"Gr- grunkle…  Waddles, no.  Don't-" Mabel huffed, slowing to a stop.  She reached out weakly as if it would somehow stop him from climbing over the farmyard fence and flopping into the mud on the other side.  "Just…  Stay there a minute.  Ugh, Dipper I think your body wants to throw up."

"I think yours wants to…  To either run up the hill and roll back down, jump into that pile of pine needles over there, or just…  Flop down here and sleep for a week," he replied, dropping to the ground in a patch of grass, confused at the urge to at least roll back and forth in the soft bristling below.

"That…  Would be so much fun if I didn't feel like your body would get dizzier than it already is," Mabel said, craving the feeling of being back in her own body again more than ever.

From somewhere near the top of the hill, Farmer Sprott yelled, "Get out of there ya crazy old coot!"

They looked up to find him running along the pig pen's fence, shaking a rake at Waddles, or as far as he could tell, Stan Pines.

"Oh no…" Wendy groaned at the bwoop bwoop of a police siren.  The sun glared off its windshield as it sped up Northwest Terrace and onto the dirt road leading to the farm.

"Whyyyy?" Mabel moaned, dragging herself into the shade of what was left of a tree split in half by lightning in the storm the other day.

The trio tried to move but barely made it a few steps before the car doors opened and Blubs and Durland stepped out.

"We had a report of a man trespassing on your property," Blubs said, approaching the fence.

"Yes, officers," Sprott answered, lowering his rake and pointing it at Stan’s body as it rolled in the mud.  "Right there."

"Oh my," Durland said, cringing.

Blubs shook his head and, after a few tsks, said, "Poor old man, finally went senile.  Should have known something was up that day he tried to turn himself in for smuggling endangered species across state lines."

"He thinks he's a pig!" Durland added, leaning over the fence and listening to his snorts and squeals.

Blubs opened the gate and approached him slowly.  "Let's get you back home," he said, holding out his hand to let him sniff it.

Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy grimaced as Blubs and Durland grabbed his arms, wrangling the muddied mess of their grunkle's body into the back seat of their car.  Waddles squealed and wriggled, trying to break free, but they shut the door, trapping him inside.  He beat against the windows, leaving muddy streaks and splatters, his black eye and injured nose invisible under the mud drying on his face.

Dipper heaved a sigh, staring in the general direction of the Mystery Shack and wondering how they'd make it there when none of them had the energy stand up straight anymore.  He turned to Mabel and Wendy, who both looked like they wanted to fall down and never move again.  "On the bright side," he offered, "at least they got a hold of him?"

"I guess we should get back so we don't lose him again," Mabel sighed, picking pine needles out of the matted curls of the body she was borrowing.

Rather than follow the twins' trudged steps, Wendy pulled out her phone, tapped a few buttons, then held it to her ear.

"Wendy, what are you doing?" Dipper asked, turning back at the beep of buttons.  "We need to-"  
  
"There's no way we can beat them to the shack on foot and I don’t know about you guys but, I'll probably drop dead if we try," she answered, "So, I'm calling my dad.  He's clearing a lot down there," she added, pointing to a tree that shook twice, cracked, and toppled over just below them.  "I'm gonna see if he'll give us a ride. Hi, dad?"

 

 

****

 

 

"He thinks he's a pig?" Dan asked, cranking the wheel and tipping his truck onto two tires to avoid careening into a patch of pine trees.

"Basically, yeah," Wendy answered, leaning back in the passenger's seat.  She had half-lied to her father, claiming Stan was sick with a high fever and they needed to be back by the time the police brought him home so they could get him into bed and taken care of.

"He must be in pretty rough shape.  Do you remember," Dan asked, pressing down the gas pedal until they were all glued to the backs of their seats, "When I got sick last February and that medicine made me so loopy that I thought your brother was a llama?"

"Ha, yeah I do.  You also thought the bathtub was our boat.  I found you in there using the toilet brush like an oar," Wendy answered with a laugh, bracing herself in the passenger seat as the vehicle sped off the side of a riverbank, landing with a bounce on the other side.

In the back seat, among sawdust and the overpowering musk of too many tree-shaped air fresheners, Dipper and Mabel clutched each other's hands, white-knuckled as Dan's truck wove through the trees.

"Ha ha, don't worry kids," he bellowed, glancing at them in the rear view mirror, "I know these woods like the palm of my hand."

"Isn’t it supposed to be back of- Ahh!” Dipper yelled, grasping Mabel in a tight hug as muck and pine needles splashed over the windshield and the tires sloshed through a stream.

"I'll get you home safe in no time!" He continued, swerving around a boulder.  Despite the heart racing ride, Dan did seem to know what he was doing.  When he'd picked them up, he offered them each a bottle of water from the cooler in the back, all of which were already empty and had bounced out of their cup holders and rolled onto the floor in the back seat.  Best of all, though, his truck had a functional air conditioner he'd lowered it to the coldest setting.

As they bounced over a bed of rocks, Mabel clung to Dipper, blurting, "I’m sorry my friends and I got too loud and ruined our mini-golf course!"

At the same time, he burst out with, "I'm sorry I keep you up at night with my summer reading!"

Their words blended together as they both proclaimed, "I never really wanted to move out of our room!"

"Wait, what?"  Mabel asked, loosening her grip on Dipper as the truck flew between two trees and onto an actual road cut through the woods, its course evening out.

"I like sharing a room," Dipper answered, settling back into his seat.  "Everything was fine until you started bringing your friends around every night.  I mean, hanging out with you this summer's been fun.  But, now you're always with Candy and Grenda, and I'm...  Like…  Just, left behind."

"Aww, Dipper…"

"It's okay.  I guess we both get carried away with things sometimes.  I never knew it grated on your nerves so much when I click my pen.  And ugh…  These braces.  They’re horrible, how do you live like this?"

"Eh, you get used to them to a point," she answered with a shrug.  "But, I never knew clicking your pen was so soothing to you," she admitted, "Or how much it hurts your ears when my sleepovers get loud.  No wonder you thought you had to go outside."  She shifted in her seat and tugged at her seat belt until she could reach into the pocket containing the president's key.  She pulled it out and offered it to her twin with a smile.  "Here," she said, "You should have the new room.  I won’t fight you for it."

"Really?  Thanks, Mabel," he said, but pushed the key back to her.  "Why don't you hold onto it until we can get things back to normal."

"Alright," she said, pocketing the key.  "Hey, Dipper?  I promise me and my friends will be quieter when we get together, and we'll be more careful not to break things.  And I promise I won't forget to spend time with you, too."

"And I promise to actually wash my clothes sometimes.  Sheesh…  I didn't realize they were THAT bad," Dipper said, somewhat thankful that the air fresheners masked the stink of dirt and drying sweat.

Both apologies ended in a simultaneous yell as the vehicle sailed through the air again and off the side of an embankment, drifting to a stop at the Mystery Shack's back porch.

"Alright!” Wendy cheered, opening her door.  She unfastened her seat belt and leapt down, landing gracefully beside the truck.  "Looks like we made it here first. Thanks, dad."

"T-thanks, Mr. Corduroy," Dipper and Mabel stuttered.  They released themselves from their seat belts, opened their doors, and tumbled down to their knees, relieved to be on solid ground again.

"No problem," Dan said with a wave.  "See you for dinner, kiddo!  We’re having bowl of meat!"  
  
"Mmm…  Tasty," Wendy said, shutting the door with a tree-shaking thud.  Dipper and Mabel wobbled to their feet and closed the back seat doors, stepping out of the way so Dan could turn the truck around.  They watched for a moment as it faded away between the trees, wondering if they'd spot Sheriff Blubs's car on its way in.

"There you are!" Grenda shouted, slamming the door to the back porch open.

Except, it wasn't Grenda who stepped through.

"Where did you guys go?”  The voice certainly had Grenda's gruffness but the body it came from was Candy’s thin frame.

"Yes," Candy said, navigating Grenda's larger body through the doorway and onto the porch.  "We noticed you left and looked for you.  We found a strange room and now we are each other," she explained and struck a pose, showing off Grenda's muscles.

"Not again..." Mabel said with sagging shoulders.

"Oh boy..." Dipper sighed, facepalming.

"Pffft," Wendy laughed, "As hilarious as this is, I think we'd better get everyone back inside-"

Candy gasped, running up to Mabel's body.  Though Dipper flinched away, she still reached out and fumbled with Grenda's larger hands, trying to thread a lock of matted hair through her fingers.  She plucked dried bits of leaves from between her curls and asked, "Mabel, what happened to you?"

"Yeah," Grenda added, "You look like you lost a fight with a tree."

"We must take you inside and redo your makeover," Candy urged.

"Makeov- what?"  Dipper said, struggling against the grip of Grenda's arms powered by Candy's will.

"Girls, no, not right now, wait, hold on," Mabel yelled, running after them as they dragged Dipper into the house.

"No!  No no no no!” Dipper yelled, squirming and twisting until somehow, he broke free.  He made a run for the secret room calling for Mabel to follow, "Mabel, hurry!"

"Right!" she said, chasing after the group.  "Wendy, wait here for when they bring Grunkle Waddles back!"

"You got it," she said, flopping down onto the sofa and leaning back, her legs still rubbery from their pig-chasing misadventure.

"Candy, Grenda, wait!  That's not me, that's Dipper!" Mabel yelled, closing the gap between herself and her friends.

Dipper jogged into the secret room and turned, arms outstretched in an attempt to stop Candy and Grenda.  "Wait wait wait, no don't!  It's me, Dipper!" he shouted as they tackled him, adding an extra "oof" as Mabel skidded into them, tumbling on top of Candy and Grenda.

With a crackle and zap the world flashed blue.

Candy found herself on top of the dogpile and lifted herself up, giving everyone else space to move.  She caught sight of herself in the three panel mirror and giggled at the sight.

Dipper looked down to find his sister's body on the floor below him.  "Does this mean I'm my whole self again?" he asked, lifting his arm and finding it wrapped in Candy's striped shirt.  "Of course not," he answered himself flatly.

"I am a boy now!" Candy announced in a frivolous tone then added in a deep voice, "Wassup, bro?  Let's grow some mustaches."

Using the sofa's seat as a crutch, Mabel hauled herself to her feet and looked down to find her own body still lying on the ground, rubbing her head.  "Oh no, now what?"

Grenda sat up, lifting Mabel's hands into her view and flexing them.  "Yeesh, you and Candy have such tiny little doll hands.  But, What just happened?  How did we get switched like this?” she asked.

"I barely understand it," Mabel answered, patting Grenda's pigtails in an effort to understand whose body she ended up in, "All I know is that if you shuffle your feet on this carpet, you can switch bodies or whatever."

"Can we please switch back now?" Dipper asked, trying to rake a hand down his face but only succeeding in smearing fingerprints down Candy's glasses.

"Everybody look," Mabel said, building up static under Grenda's shoes.  Dipper followed her lead, swishing Candy's shoes over the carpet.  Candy and Grenda joined in, shuffling closer to their own bodies.  Mabel held out a finger, reaching toward Grenda and instructed, "Swap back in 3, 2…"

"Oh dudes!" Soos bellowed, barreling into the room as fast as Waddles's legs could carry him.

"Come back!" Fiddleford yelled, clamoring in behind him and brandishing a knife, fork, and an apple he deemed perfect for a pig roast.  "I wanna deep fry your ears!"

Candy, Grenda, Dipper, and Mabel yelled in unison, "NO!" at the same time as Wendy appeared at the door shouting, "Wait, don't!"

Wendy ducked back from the door just in time as another zap of blue displaced the consciousnesses of everyone in the room.  From somewhere outside, she heard a car door slam.  "Hey guys, I think Grunkle Waddles is back," she said, but no one seemed to hear over their various laughs and shouts over which bodies the rug had thrown them into.  Though she wanted to watch the chaos unfold and maybe even snap a few photos, she tore herself away from the scene to check on the noise outside.

As the static simmered down inside the room, Grenda dropped the apple and silverware that were suddenly in her hands and held out Fiddleford's beard.  With a wide, gap-toothed smile, she shouted, "Cool!  I'm Santa Clause!"

Fiddleford caught a glimpse of himself in the three panel mirror and cheered at his dark-haired and bespectacled appearance.  "WOOEE! Haha!" he cheered, "I've regained my innocence!"

Soos flexed Grenda's arms and shrugged, commenting, "This body's not that different from my old one."

"I am still a boy," Candy said, sounding a little disappointed that she hadn't found herself in a different body.

"Hey…  Hey!  I'm all of me again!" Mabel shouted, hugging herself and happy to feel one of her sweaters snuggling her, as well as the warmth of her hair draped comfortably, albeit, tangled, down her back.

Dipper sighed, holding out one of Waddles's hooves and glaring at it.  "Well, I guess I'm a pig now, so, that's a thing," he grumbled, grabbing the apple Grenda had dropped and gnawing on it without even thinking.  In the midst of is Om-nom-ing, he rolled over, unsure why it felt like the thing to do and bumped into the cardboard box he'd noticed earlier, tipped onto its side with a sheet and trophy spilling from between its flaps.  He rolled upright and nuzzled the sheet, grabbing a hold of it with Waddles's mouth and tugging.  "Mabel," he tried to say, but it came out as an unintelligible mumble.

Still, she turned and seemed to understand what he was doing.  She reached out, helping him tug the sheet away from the box.  Trophies and plaques tumbled out from among the sheet, mostly intact, alongside a framed photo whose glass had shattered, stacks of paper, and a cracked glass pyramid with one of its corners broken off.

Mabel lifted a plaque and read the words engraved in gold on its metallic blue plate, "Physics trivia champion, Stanford Pines."

Dipper rolled over a trophy and read the plate, "Proud Educator's Award, Fifth Grade Math, Stanford Pines."  
  
"Dipper, what is all of this?" Mabel asked toeing pieces of broken glass that appeared to belong to the photo frame.  She lifted the cherry-stained frame and tilted her head as she looked at the photo.  It was a picture of two young boys in boxing gear, one was thin with horn rimmed glasses and the other slightly more muscular and free of any eye-wear.  Otherwise, they were almost identical.  The boy without glasses had one arm wrapped around the other and nuzzled his boxing glove against his head.  The boy with glasses was laughing but looked like he was struggling to escape, reminding her of Dipper when Stan gave him a nuggie.

"I wonder who these two are," she asked setting the photo back in the box.

"I don’t know-"

"Hey guys!" Wendy shouted from down the hall.

"Oh no, Mabel!  I can’t let her see me like this!  Quick, swap with me?" he begged, shuffling his hooves against the carpet.

"No way, I just got my body back!" She snorted, backing away from him.

Blubs's announcement echoed down the hall in a sugary sweet tone, "Kids, we found your uncle up at Sprott's farm-" only to be cut off by Durland's, "Hey, stop hitting me, ack!  He's gettin' away!"

A squeal sounded through the hall, moving closer like a high speed train charging toward them.

"Wait, Mr. Pines," Durland shouted, his footsteps clomping closer.

"Oh no…” Dipper grumbled, exasperated and bracing himself for another swap.  At least it would get him out of the pig's body and away from that itch behind his ear that he couldn't quite scratch.

Stan's body ran in on all fours and skidded across the carpet, rolling and leaving streaks and spots of mud in his wake.  He jogged toward Mabel with what she swore was a relieved smile and fell into her arms.

"Aw Waddles!" she said, grimacing as he smeared mud across her sweater but petting Stan's grime-caked hair in some effort to comfort him anyway.  "I know, I know. Grunkle Stan's body hurts a lot right now, doesn't it?" she crooned.

"Mabel...?"  Dipper backed away as he saw her stand and edge toward him.  "Oh no...  No no no, I want to be me again not-" Dipper sputtered as blue sparks arced around them.

"Sorry, guys," Mabel said, reaching out to Dipper despite him backing away, "But this is for your own good.  At least you won't get Stan's body hurt anymore."  She shoved Dipper toward Waddles and jumped away, climbing onto the desk as blue sparks encircled them.

As she did, Durland stumbled into the room and Blubs ran into him from behind, knocking them both onto the carpet in a spatter of sparks.

With an "Oh hell no," Wendy ducked away from the door as static crackled in visible arcs across the carpet.

Candy, still test-driving Dipper's body, ran with outstretched arms toward Grenda.  Grenda dropped Fiddleford's beard and jogged toward Candy, laughing as they piled on top of Blubs and Durland just as Dipper collided with Waddles.

Another flash of blue left Dipper groaning.  He reached up to touch the bruising around Stan's eye, hissing at the slightest brush against it.  "Everything hurts."

"Waddles!"  Mabel sang, opening her arms to him.  "Sorry Dipper, we'll get you switched back, just let me get Waddles somewhere safe," she added, lifting Waddles into her arms.  She carried him into the bathroom and set him down, reassuring him, "Just wait in here a minute and I'll be back to let you out when we get everyone back to normal, alright?"  He tilted his head like he understood her and sat still as she closed the door.  "Two back to normal, a bunch more to go," she commented, her smile falling flat as she looked over the commotion.

Candy's voice came from the Sheriff's mouth as she held out his arms and looked down, realizing, "I am a police officer now!"

Grenda replied from inside Deputy Durland's body, "Let’s go bust some perps, Candy!"

Fiddleford, still inside Candy's body, danced a jig that moved closer and closer to Soos, still in Grenda's body.  Soos caught sight of blue arcing up around Candy’s shoes as they shuffled and pattered against the carpet.  He backed away, accidentally bringing Grenda's foot down on the stem of one of the trophies scattered across the floor and snapping it in half.

"My horoscope didn't say anything about this," sheriff Blubs lamented, holding up Fiddleford's beard.

"Ahhh!  What’s happenin' to me?!" Durland wailed, suddenly realizing he was stuck in the body of a prepubescent boy.  With a constant yell, he ran in circles around the room, crashing through the spilled pile of awards, one foot snapping a plaque in half and the other skidding on the pile of paper, sending sheets sliding across the floor.

"Guys!  Guys calm down, please!" Mabel begged, reaching out in desperation as Grenda and Candy chased Durland and Blubs in an impromptu game of cops and robbers.

Dipper looked up, holding Stan's injured eye shut, in time to see them stomp through the pile of scattered papers.  At the same time, Grenda's body, piloted by Soos, backed further away from Fiddleford, who was enjoying the ease with which Candy’s body could dance.  "No stop!" he begged, lifting himself up and reaching out to prevent Soos from stepping on the largest of the trophies.

The world flashed blue again and Soos found himself on his knees with the majority of his face throbbing in pain.

Dipper let out an "aw man," as he found himself in Grenda's body.  "Though, it is nice to have muscles for a change," he commented with a slight smile, admiring Grenda's Biceps.

Meawhile, out in the hall, Stan navigated Soos's body around the corner, his disgruntled expression shifting to shock as he saw blue flash through the open door to Ford's room and Wendy ducking away from it with a wince.

"Wendy, what's going on in there?" he asked, his tone split between worry and anger.  His pace quickened as he ran toward her, his heart picking up tempo with every step.

"Oh hey Grunkle Soos!" she said, waving to him.  
  
"Grunkle wha-?"  
  
"It's what we've been calling you since you got all body-swapped with Soos and Waddles."  
  
Another blast of blue flashed through the door and he commanded, "Wendy, out of the way.  Now!"  
  
She'd never heard him take that tone before, like a parent panicking over their child's safety.  She stepped aside, shock drawn across her face.

He swung around the door frame, using it to help him screech to a stop.  For a moment, he could only watch slack-jawed as various bodies ran around the room, some laughing, some panicking, and two, Mabel and what appeared to be her friend Grenda, aside from having Dipper’s voice, trying to stop them from stomping on Ford's possessions, scattered in pieces across the carpet.

He escaped the shock holding his voice hostage and hollered, “EVERYONE STOP NOW!"

Blue sparks popped around the room but everyone paused, fingers held still in midair near whomever they'd planned on swapping bodies with.

"If you don’t stop," he explained, "we might never get our real bodies back.  I don't know how long this thing will work.  It might shut down and need to charge for, I dunno, could be decades."

"Uh…  That's not good…" Dipper’s voice emerged from Grenda's mouth in a serious tone.

"Zap zap," Candy chirped, chuckling from inside Fiddleford's body.  
  
"No!" Everyone shouted together, backing away from her.

"Look,” Stan said, stepping cautiously into the room, trying not to think too much about the muddied state of his own body nor the broken bits of Ford's possessions spewed across the filthy floor.  With hands curled into trembling fists, he quelled the eruption of emotions, numbing the tingling heat spreading to every toe and fingertip.  He steadied his voice and instructed, "Everyone figure out who you need to swap with and let's get changed back before we're stuck this way for who knows how long."

After a few moments of discussion, Dipper and Fiddleford announced the order of swaps that would return everyone to normal in the fewest amount of zaps.  With a total of three, each bringing an increasing level of anxiety to those still displaced, everyone found themselves back in their proper bodies.

"Now that we’re all back how we should be..." Stan said in a soft, almost comforting voice.  He breathed deeply, his expression hardening and tone escalating to something akin to a drill sergeant as he ordered, "EVERYONE GET OUT!  Except you," he added, pointing to Fiddleford.

"Me?" he asked, pointing to himself.

"Yeah, you.  I need to talk to you for a minute," he said, wincing more from the hardened mud caked into his stubble than the aches of being in his own body again.

"Well, lookit this," Fiddleford chattered to himself, "yer, movin' up in the world, McGucket.  Gettin' invited to stick around and chat at someone's house."  He smiled and hoisted himself up onto the sofa, wiggling into a comfortable position.  "This 'ere is one comfort-amable sofa," he said, stroking one of the cushions, "Feels familiar somehow, even.  Like it remembers me."

Blubs and Durland snickered to each other on the way out, joking about how no one at the station was going to believe this and how they’d agree to never mention it again.

"Are you sure you don't want me to help you clean up in here, boss?" Soos asked, bending over to pick up the sheet and scattering broken trophy bits.  "Oh, sorry dude."

Stan caught himself growling a bit and took a deep breath, feeling like he'd just swallowed two handfuls of hot coal in an attempt to calm down enough to speak actual words.  "Thanks, but no thanks,” he grumbled, shooing him out.

A series of snorts sounded from behind the bathroom door and he turned to see Mabel opening it.  Waddles stepped out slowly, as if exercising caution and pressed himself against Stan's legs, rubbing on them like a cat.  Stan sighed and said, "Wait, Soos.  Take the pig with you.  Put him up in the attic or something.  I'm gonna be digging mud out of my ear hair for weeks thanks to him."  
  
"Alright, see you tomorrow then, boss," Soos said, coaxing waddles toward the door and picking him up once they were both safely off of the carpet.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow, boss-man," Wendy said, waving and following after Soos, jogging the last few steps to avoid any further yelling.

"What about our sleepover?" Candy asked Mabel.

"Sorry, girls," she answered, wanting to pat them on the shoulders but too afraid the carpet might rearrange their brains and bodies again.  "I honestly don't think I feel up to it tonight."  
  
"We're still on for the concert tomorrow night, though, right?" Grenda asked.

"Yeah.  Or...  At least, I hope so,” Mabel spoke with trepidation as she looked up to Stan with inquiring, pleading eyes.

Stan sighed, rubbing his eyes as he answered, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever.  I don't care what you do tomorrow as long as you leave me alone right now."

"Thanks, Grunkle Stan,” She replied, waving to her friends as they staggered out of the room like they’d been on a boat for a week.

With everyone else gone, Stan pointed to Fiddleford and addressed him as, "McGoogle."  
  
"McGucket," Dipper reminded only to receive a death glare from Stan.

"He-he’s Not wrong..."  Fiddleford stuttered, shrinking under Stan's glare and crossed arms.

"Fine," he barked, lowering his arms.  Again, he steadied his voice, though he couldn't help the hint of sarcasm on the correction of the inventor's name.  “McGucket.  I got a job for you if you want it.  There’s a new safe in my office.  Can you put a motion sensor on it and rig it up to this thing so it'll tell me if anyone touches it?" he asked, pulling his pager from his pocket and holding it out for Fiddleford to see.

"Yeah, easy as gettin' bit by a mosquito inna' swamp on a summer evenin'.  Jus' lemme skeedaddle on home and pick up a few a’ my tools and my lucky blow torch," he said, rocking back and forth to built up the leverage to leap off of the sofa.  "I’ll be back in a jiffy.” On the way out, he jumped and clicked his heels together with a, "Woo hoo! Now I can afford to see Sev'ral Timez, too!"  
  
Stan let out a heavy sigh and dropped to his knees in front of the box of Ford's broken possessions, streaking even more filth across the carpet.  As he looked over the mess, it felt like someone doused the fire within, drowning him in the deluge.

"G-Grunkle Stan?" Mabel said, reaching out to him but withdrawing her hand for fear of more carpet shenanigans.  
  
"Didn't I tell you to get out?" he muttered, the sound striking them deeper than any amount of yelling.  He tipped the box upright and gathered up the sheet, placing it inside in no particular fashion aside from being gentle in the process.  With, dirt covered hands, he gathered broken bits and set them on top of the sheet, speechless and sallow below the mud chipping off of his cheeks.

"We want to help."  Dipper offered, bending over to pick up the pieces of the broken plaque.

"Yeah," Mabel added, sniffling as she bent to pick up the broken base of a trophy.  "Let us help you-"

"You've already ‘helped’ enough," Stan snapped.  He pushed the box onto the hardwood with his foot and bent to roll up the carpet, letting whatever was left on it slide off onto the floor in clinks and clatters.  He rolled it up and chucked it into the corner like it was his new worst enemy, stirring up a cloud of decades old dust.

Dipper and Mabel both cringed.

"Grunkle Stan, we're sorry-" Dipper said at the same time as Mabel tried to explain, "We tried to stop them, we tried to save everything-"

Stan held up his hand to shush them.  With an exhausted exhalation, he stated in a calm but stern tone, "I'm going to shower."

"Grunkle Stan, we really are sorry-" they said simultaneously, following him as he stepped out of the room.

"I said I’m going to shower!" he repeated, not even turning back.  “Just go to your room or watch TV or whatever.  I don't care as long as it's somewhere that's not here!  We'll talk about this when I feel less like a pile of manure threw up on me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Qexq mfd albp x mobqqv dlla gly lc zobxqfkd zexlp. Jxvyb EB pelria glfk jv ebkzejxkfxzp.
> 
> [ Past end notes decoded here ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)


	34. Pursuing Pawns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper and Mabel mend their relationship, among other things, Stan's tired, but mostly tired of lying, Fiddleford forgets what he remembered, Ford watches the news, and Bill makes a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Warnings - just one scene with some non-graphic horror elements  
> ~Thanks so much to everyone who's helping out with summaries in the notes! It really clears things up in my head and I super appreciate it! :D  
> ~Woo Hoo! More characters starting to show up now!  
> ~Sorry this chapter is late, I was having trouble putting it together then got a sinus infection :P  
> ~The next one might be a little late as well ;^^

Stan had hoped that washing mud out of unmentionable places would demand enough attention to keep his mind from wandering.  It almost did but not quite.  Instead, he oscillated between snapping into reality long enough to wonder if he’d managed to dislodge the caked on crud from his scalp and slipping into autopilot, preoccupied with worries over all the kids had seen that day.

Ford’s room.  His possessions, awards, and even childhood photos.  For all he knew, Dipper and Mabel could still be in there rummaging through that box, searching through drawers for more.  They might have figured it all out.  Hell, they could even be in the basement by now.

Some part of him was too worn down to care.  Some part panicked.  And some part was starting to rethink what Dr. Braum had to say about their situation.

As it stood, he wasn’t sure why he and Ford had told her the truth about Bill last night.  They didn’t really have to.  She never actually asked.  After overhearing Stan mention that Bill was a threat to the world, all she’d said was that she was having trouble honoring her motto of “don’t ask, just do the job and get paid.”

Why did that seem like a prompt for him to explain that Bill wasn’t some random demon with a petty grudge against Ford; that he was a being of pure energy who intended on invading their world?  Why did Ford admit that he’d seen into Bill’s mind and believed he’d glimpsed the extent of Bill’s destruction in other dimensions?  Why did they both nod when Dr. Braum concluded that Bill was punishing them for standing in his way?

“More like for disappointing him; for failing in his eye,” Ford had added.  “There is no reason to believe I was… Am…  His only pawn.  Just the one, or, I imagine, some of the ones, he’s angry with at the moment.  And the one gullible enough to let him turn me into a puppet.”

When Dr. Braum had stitched the whole story together and realized they hadn’t told their family any of this, she’d said in a grave tone, as if she knew it to be an imperative fact, “You need to tell them the truth.”

Stan had tried to stop her but no amount of waving his hands had halted her words.  He’d winced as Ford had barked back, “absolutely not!”

At the time, Stan had agreed with Ford, just not quite so aggressively.  They couldn’t tell the kids the truth.  They’d want to help.  They’d put themselves in danger.  They could… Would be hurt.

He wasn’t sure if he meant the kids or themselves with that last point.  Both, perhaps.

But maybe Dr. Braum wasn’t wrong when she insisted they needed help.  It seemed they already knew it, that they’d bottled everything up for so long that the slightest nudge was all it needed to start leaking out, like water squeezed through a pinhole in a balloon.

Still, she made no arguments they hadn’t already considered themselves.

_They deserve to know so they can protect themselves.  If the world is in danger, you could use the help.  It isn’t fair to them to keep them in the dark.  You’re treating them like they’re a liability, not family._

“They’re kids!” Stan had countered.  “It’s our job to make sure they feel safe.”

“And it’s our job to NOT dump our baggage on them,” Ford had added.

Neither had much logic to supply when she asked about rest of their family, aside from remembering a time decades ago, when Shermie was settling into being a father.  Neither of them had wanted to bother him, nor his family, with their problems, even long before Bill was part of their lives.

And that had been about where the leak in their defenses dried up.  Neither had any intention of mentioning that their father would have been the opposite of helpful, that honesty with their mother allowed Bill to torment her as well, or that Bill, to that day, tried to use her as a weapon against them.  Maybe Stan had said it himself that at least telling her meant she was able to be part of their lives in some way but was it worth seeing her cry when Bill wouldn’t let her speak to Ford?  Would it be worth seeing Dipper or Mabel cry for the same reasons?  Would it be worth watching Ford fold himself into the corner and tell them all to please leave because Bill lashed out at them?  To give Bill more reminders to jab him with?

No.  He couldn’t handle it and Ford would likely fall apart.  Even if the family knew, even if they understood the situation…

Their mother had.  She understood it had been Bill controlling Ford’s body and spitting out poisonous words.  They knew she understood but, it didn’t hurt any of them any less.

But could he really lie to the kids _again_?  He’d lied so much in his life that he was barely sure which parts were true anymore.  He’d told THAT lie to nearly everyone he cared about.  The thought of telling it one more time felt like he scaling a cliff he’d climbed so many times that he’s worn the face of it bald.

He cursed to himself, both in response to his thoughts and because he suspected he’d just conditioned his hair for a third time.  “Humph.  What do you think you’re doing, Stan?” he grumbled to himself, “Havin’ one ‘a them angsty showers like on TV?”  He parted the shower curtain, letting out a poof of soapy scented steam as he reached for his towels.  He wrapped one around his head and the second around his waist, letting out a disgruntled noise at the sight of silvery hair covering practically everything the second towel didn’t.  “Guess I ain’t exactly Count Lionel brooding under a waterfall or nothin’.  Still, not bad, even if everything hurts,” he admitted, watching the muscles in his right arm as he flexed it, not entirely for the sake of working out some of the achiness.

“Ah ouch!”

Whether or not he met the standards of a hunky romance movie character, he agreed with himself that any further brooding would have to wait, along with figuring out how to answer the million questions the kids likely had, asking several of his own, and trying to break the news to Ford that almost every award from his youth had been damaged in some way.  First in line was getting the safe upgraded which meant making himself look at least somewhat presentable again.

He pulled the curtain open and lifted his legs high over the tub’s edge, careful not to trip, but, his exhausted body teetered to the side, nearly losing his balance and slipping back into the tub.  The towel wrapped over his hair tipped and tumbled, flopping to the ground in a wet splat.  Grunting, he bent over to pick it up and let out a hushed, “Ah, dammit,” as his back popped, his limbs aching as if every muscle and bone was bruised to match his eye.  He balled up the towel, his fingers so tense that they trembled, and threw it at the sink with an, “Argh!”

“Okay,” he huffed, “Okay.  You gotta get it back together.”

He reached to the top shelf of the medicine cabinet for some concealer and pulled down the jar Mabel had bought when she tried to give him a makeover a few weeks ago, almost cracking a smile at it.  She really did try to help him.  Maybe the ordeal hadn’t resulted in a lasting relationship with a romantic partner but it did gain him one with the flawless coverage of Cray-Cray Concealer.  And, maybe the kids did mess up or get carried away with things sometimes but, who doesn’t?

“The real question is, what did that pig do to my body?” he wondered, sneering at the dirt that clung to his fingernails despite several scrubbings.  Hissing, he patted the concealer over his bruised neck and decided against any attempt at covering his black eye, figuring just covering the suspicious marks sounded “presentable” enough.  The idea of wearing his suit was still out of the question with the air hanging stagnant and stifling around him.  Instead, he wrapped his robe over a clean set of boxers and undershirt, if only to feel slightly more like he was curled up in his bed.  He grumbled that his favorite slippers were nowhere to be found but slid his feet into a new pair in the same sandal-like style but blue-green in color and lacking the broken-in comfort he’d prized in his old pair.

Reaching for the door, he recited a tired mantra, “OK, Stan.  You can do this,” uncertain of which “this” he meant.

 

****

 

“Did you see the look on his face?  He must _hate_ us right now,” Mabel repeated for the tenth time, rocking back and forth with her face half-nestled in sweater town.

Dipper rested his hand on her shoulder, clutching his knees with his other arm.  He’d run out of ways to say he didn’t think Stan hated them, especially considering he wasn’t even convincing himself with any of them.  If it was true, though, he wouldn’t blame him.

“Do you think he’s going to send us home?” she asked, wiping her cheek with her sweater sleeve.  “We really messed up bad this time.”

“I…  Don’t know,” he answered, pulling her closer under the blue glow of the axolotl tank.  “No.  No I don’t think so,” he added, loosening a lock of her hair from between his arm and her sweater to avoid any accidental tugging.  “He said you could still go to the concert tomorrow night, right?”

“Y-yeah.  He did. But, Dipper, I feel horrible.  All that stuff got broken because I was a dumb-dumb idiot and opened that door and let Waddles out and-”

“No, it wasn’t your fault,” Dipper said, “You were right before when you said it was both of us.  If I’d had that key, I would have done the same thing and…  I'm the one who used it to get in there in the first place.  Ugggh.  How can we show him how sorry we are?”

Mabel reached up to the doily-topped dinosaur skull and pulled down one of the pens Stan kept there to jot down ideas for museum exhibits during their monster movie marathons.  She passed it to Dipper and reassured him, “We’ll think of a way.”

He clicked it softly a few times but his thoughts felt as though they’d been scattered to dimensions beyond his reach.  The pen slipped from his hand completely as three sharp knocks sounded at the side door.

They dragged themselves to their feet and into the hall as a familiar caterwaul announced from the stoop, “Helllloooo!  I’m back!”

Mabel sniffled and wiped her puffy cheeks with her sweater sleeve one more time before opening the door.

On the other side, Fiddleford stood bow-legged with his beard tucked into his tool belt, a blowtorch in one hand and what looked like a doctor’s bag overflowing with wrenches, screwdrivers, and circuit boards clutched in his other.

“Fiddleford H. McGucket, at ‘yer service,” he said with an uneven blink.

“Oh, right,” Dipper said, unsure what to do with their guest until Stan finished in the shower.  He figured inviting him in was a good place to start and offered, “Come in,” motioning for him to follow them to the living room.

Taking one step into the hallway, Fiddleford muttered to himself, “Feel like I’m gettin’ some ‘ahhh deja-whatsamacallitt in this place.”

Unable to interpret their guest’s mumbles, Mabel shrugged and said, “Uh, Grunkle Stan’s still getting ready but he should be done in a minute.”

“Stan,” Fiddleford muttered, “Didn’t he always used to say _not_ to call him Stan?”  
  
“Huh?  What was that?”  Dipper asked, honestly unsure how to translate the near-inaudible word-like sounds.

“He always used to say to call him...” his mumble strained into broken fragments, as if he was struggling to read an eye exam chart whose letters were fading away.

From somewhere upstairs, a door clicked closed and heavy footsteps neared the stairs.  The staircase squeaked and crackled below the flop of Stan’s slippers and, as he neared the ground floor, he offered a flat attempt at a greeting, “Oh good.  You’re back.”

“Huh?” Fiddleford said, blinking at him and shaking his head as if he’d just awoken from a nap.  “Oh, hi there! McGucket at your service!!”  He repeated his name a few times smiling wide and bouncing from one foot to the other.

“Yeah.  Sure,” Stan replied with a raised eyebrow.  Maybe the man’s excitable demeanor grated on his already rubbed-raw nerves but his work had always been nothing short of genius.  “Whatever,” he said with a shrug and motioned for him to follow. “The safe is in my office, just over this way.”

Though he tried to avoid looking at Dipper and Mabel (and certainly didn’t know what to say to them) he caught a glimpse of them staring at their sheepishly shuffling feet, not daring to say a word.  It was true that he still wasn’t sure what he felt nor how to handle things, especially since, without knowing exactly what happened that day, he felt like he was trying to sew without any thread.  Was he angry at the kids for defying him and breaking into the room?  Was he angry at everything in general?  At himself?  At Ford and his cockamamie inventions?  At Bill for being the reason Ford’s room was hidden in the first place?  Was this how ma had felt when she’d asked Ford and himself not to do something and they did it anyway?

Yet, there was one thing he did know:  He didn’t want to follow in his pa’s footsteps and, in that fraction of a second, seeing so much of himself and Ford in the kids’ stiffened postures and apprehensive silence, he knew he wanted them to understand that he still cared about them, even if it turned out that some of his anger was directed at their actions.

“Kids,” he said in as gentle a tone as he could manage.

They looked up to him, Mabel with her hands clutched behind her back and Dipper wringing his in front of his stomach, and remained speechless.

“Why don’t you head to the kitchen and I’ll be there in a minute to make us some food.”

He could almost feel the tension deflate from the hallway as their lips sagged a little less.  In a lighter, almost joking tone, he added, “Then I wanna know why I had to pick plastic grass out of my dentures,” and immediately wished he hadn’t.  Not only had the tension returned tenfold but now he wasn’t so sure he wanted the answer to that question.

 

****

 

Stan showed Fiddleford the new safe and handed over his pager so he could update it to receive the new alarm’s signal.  As if he wasn’t already anxious enough, now he had the added worry that this could be the one time in twenty years that Ford would need the panic button.  As Fiddleford examined the ancient device, he mentioned the idea of upgrading to one of the new computer phones.

“Well I’d be mighty glad for the chance ta’ tinker with one,” he replied.  “Don’t get a lot of ‘em in the junkyard that are still in decent shape for that.  Usually just get them flippy ones and I got a few older ones I used for bricks in the foundation fer my new outhouse.”

It wasn’t exactly the answer Stan was hoping for and partly not one he’d expected, though he imagined he might have resorted to similar things if he’d never moved into the shack.  He guessed he’d have to ask the kids to help him pick out a phone at some point and figure things out from there.

Once Fiddleford had engrossed himself in his work on the safe, Stan slogged back to the kitchen.  Under silence’s pretense of comfort, he opened two cans of Spaghetti-loopies and plopped them into an enamel pot.

Dipper and Mabel sat at the table across from each other, the open window between them offering up the orange glow of evening but absolutely no breeze.  With the rhythm of Mabel’s swaying feet against her chair, the leg that lacked its rubber foot scraped more scratches into the hardwood while Dipper’s chair squeaked in time with the bouncing of his legs.  They stared at the table and their hands, folded and fidgeting upon it, looking up to each other then away again every so often.  They barely noticed the sizzle of brown meat hitting a hot skillet nor the beefy smell filling the air until Stan set a bowl filled with Spaghetti-loopies and topped with brown meat in front of each of them.

Mabel watched her grunkle sit in the chair with the wobbly back in front of an empty place setting and asked, “W-what about you?”

“I’m not exactly hungry right now,” he said, folding his arms over the table but rather than rest his head on them and take a nap, like three-quarters of his existence wanted him to, he rubbed his forehead and asked, “So, who wants to tell me what I missed today?”

As they ate, Dipper and Mabel recounted the events of the day.  Though hesitant, Dipper confessed to using the president’s key to break into the hidden room, but, when it came to “Where did you get that?” he simply said he found it downtown on Pioneer Day.  He thought for sure Stan would confiscate it but, he handed it back saying, “Don’t let that fall into the wrong hands,” by which, Dipper was certain, he meant Gideon.  He promised to keep it safe and only use it in case of an emergency.

Mabel explained how they’d tried to sabotage each other in their swapped bodies and how she accidentally let Waddles out of the room.  She stuffed her mouth full as if it would soften the blow or maybe make it sound like she said something else when she told him that Waddles ran into town and ended up at the farm.

Stan let his head fall into the cradle of his arms as she told him that the police had escorted him home.  “So lemme get this straight,” he said, lifting his head and rubbing his temples.  “You’re tellin’ me that the whole town, and the police, saw my body running around acting like a pig?”

“Uh…” Dipper said, poking at the remainder of his meal with his spoon.  “We’d rather not tell you that but…  Yeah.  And…  That lady from the news might have kinda-sorta seen it too.”

“But I don’t think she got much footage,” Mabel blurted, “Soos made her camera guy fall into a mud puddle.”

“Much…  Footage…?” Stan questioned with a twitching brow.  His chair scraped against the floor as he pushed himself away from the table and his feet pounded against the ground with purpose as he reached for the portable TV.  He set it on the table in front of the perpetually empty chair and reclaimed his seat, leaning across the table to turn the TV on.  It took a few moments of fidgeting with the dial until the picture cleared and the static gave way to a jovial voice.

“-cifica Northwest has won yet another mini golf championship, isn’t she just the picture of perfection?  Back to you, Shandra.”

“She certainly is, Jorge.  In local news, town shyster, Stanford Pines was spotted downtown harassing business owners and patrons alike.  Tune in at eleven for an exclusive interview with one of his victims, Mr. Bud Gleeful-”

Stan switched the TV off with a look that could set a block of ice aflame.

“Grunkle Stan, we’re sorry.  We’re so sorry,” Mabel chanted, tears welling in her eyes and desperation growing in her voice.

Simultaneously, Dipper piped up with, “We really are sorry, we didn’t mean to-”

Both fell silent as Stan raised a single hand in a shushing gesture.  He sighed and said, “I know.  Look, I’m not happy about all this but I believe you didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.  You just gotta be more careful.  This…”  As he tried to sort through everything he’d just heard, he didn't realize he was muttering his thoughts aloud.  “This is bad.”  The color drained from his face as the realization settled in, “If this drives customers away, if Bud gets his claws in this, I… I could lose the shack... ”

Just last night he’d said it was his job to make sure the kids feel safe and agreed that he shouldn’t dump things on them.  Yet, here he was doing just that.  It was true that he didn’t mean verbalize his worries but, maybe…  Maybe he was at wit’s end.  Maybe he wanted them to understand at least part of the reality of the situation.  And maybe Dr. Braum had a point that he needed help.  But of all people, did he really have to dump his worries on the kids?

“We…” Dipper began, stiffening his jaw with whatever determination he could muster.  “We won’t let that happen.  I can help you come up with more ideas for exhibits.”

“And,” Mabel piped up, “I can help you make them and I got pretty good at convincing people they needed to buy more stuff in the gift shop.”

Dipper chimed in with, “I can help you film new commercials and we can run them outside of town.  Most people who come here are tourists anyway, right?”

“Yeah, it’s just the special events that townspeople come to and we didn’t have anything planned for a while, right?” Mabel added, getting excited about the ideas flooding her mind.  “We could wait until this calms down a bit and plan something that’ll make them forget all about it!  And I’m the queen, no, the grand empress of party planning!  It’ll be great!”

“She’s not wrong,” Dipper said with a shrug.  “She’s planned every birthday we’ve has since we turned three.”

“I like your spirit, kids, but,” Stan said, appreciative of their enthusiasm but not quite ready to share in their optimism.  “We might have to just close down for a while.  Bud's been trying to talk the tour guides into skipping over this place for years.  If he manages it because of this, we’ll lose entire bus loads of customers.  And, anyway, I don’t think I’m feeling up to running tours for a while."

“I can lead tours!” Dipper announced.  “I got really good at it while Mabel and I were running things here.  Even if it's slow for a bit but we can at least keep the museum open that way.”

“And I’ll start putting together a party that will make the tour guides want to bring ALL of their groups here!  I can see it now, karaoke, dancing, and an ice cream buffet!”

“You know, that sounds like a decent arrangement for now,” Stan conceded, not quite convinced they could pull it off and both relieved and apprehensive that they were so eager to help.  “You can make up for not listening to me about going into that room by running things around here for a bit.  You’re in charge of the gift shop,” he said, pointing to Mabel.  He directed his finger to Dipper and instructed, “And you can run tours until I’m feeling up to it again.  And even if things are slow for a while, I got a bit of savings so we can at least still get groceries.”

“Woohoo!” Fiddleford hollered from the hallway, “It’s done!”

“...Okay maybe less savings after I pay for the safe,” Stan grumbled.  He heaved himself out of his seat and headed toward his office, replying with, “Alright, let’s see how it works and I’ll get what I owe ya’.”

“Alright!” Fiddleford’s shout echoed through the hall, “Gonna git me a Greasy’s Special Platter tonight!”

Dipper’s attention returned to his bowl but it blurred out of focus as he scraped his spoon through the remnants of pasta rings and ground meat in its bottom.   _What if Stan did lose the shack because Mabel and I got carried away with our fight?  What if we can't dig his reputation back out of the gutter?_ “Mabel?” he began, looking up to find her fully huddled in sweater town.  “Mabel, are you alright?”  
  
“...No, not really.  I…  Dipper,” she said, peeking out so only her eyes showed above her pink collar.  After asking every question he’d just asked himself, she added, “I used to want to grow up like, a lot.  But now…  I’m kind of scared.  Look at what Grunkle Stan’s going through because we messed up.  Someday, we’re gonna have to make important decisions too and if I’m messing up _his_ life with stupid ones now, what’s going to happen when we get older?  Am I going to mess up my own life?  Someone else’s?  I have enough trouble picking out yarn colors but at least that’s fixable if I mess it up!”  She retreated back into her sweater again, sniffling softly under its magenta hearts.  
  
“It takes work to fix your projects, though, right?  Like, that one sweater you made where you messed up some stitches.  You almost threw it away but then I got you that cat patch for our birthday and you sewed it over the weird stitches and now you still wear it,” Dipper said, watching her eyes reemerge from inside her sweater.  “It just took a bit of creativity and some help from someone who cares about you.  I guess, you could say that life can be fixed like that too.  We fixed up the shack after the gremloblin thing right?  And Soos even helped us make it better than before.  So, as long as we work together and don’t give up, we’ll be alright, even if it’s not perfect, I guess.”

“You think so?” she asked, unwrapping her arms from across her knees and working them back into her sweater’s sleeves.

"Yeah, I do."

“Thanks, Dipper.”

“No problem.  And, hey, you have Candy and Grenda and mom and dad to help too.  I dunno…  Maybe that’s why I was so worried when you seemed like you wanted to hang out with your friends so much…  Like maybe you wouldn’t have time for me if I needed help…  That’s, pretty selfish, huh?” he said, sinking in his chair below the lowered brim of his hat, “But, I get that you need more people in your life than me.”

“Not anymore selfish than I’ve been,” she answered with a light smile, reaching across the table to tip up his hat.  “But even if I do hang out with my friends a lot, I promise I won’t forget about you.  And hey, you and Soos have gotten to be pretty good friends.  And Wendy, too.  Maybe she’s dating Robbie and all but she does still like hanging out with you.”  
  
“Yeah?  Yeah.  I guess you’re right, thanks, Mabel.”

From the hall, they heard Stan thank Fiddleford and twilight filled the wood-paneled corridor as he opened the door to let him out.  Shutting it behind him, he clapped his hands together and acknowledged, “Welp,” at least that’s one thing taken care of.”  He leaned against the kitchen’s door frame and suggested, “Why don’t we all go get some rest for now.  Just stick your dishes in the sink and we’ll take care of them tomorrow.”

They nodded and did as Stan asked but, as they walked toward him, he held out the room key, dangling it at their eye level.  “I didn’t forget about this,” he said, “but after what you told me about today, I don’t know who really won it.”

“Dipper did,” Mabel said, patting him on the shoulder and evoking a smile from him.

“Well, here ya go, kiddo,” Stan said, handing it to him.  “You can sleep in there tonight if you want but you’ll have to use the sofa.  Ain’t no way I can carry a bed down there right now.”

“You’re still alright with giving it to me?” Dipper asked, accepting the key, “After everything that happened?”

“As long as you two gremlins really are gonna help me make sure this place doesn’t go under.”

“We will!”

 

****

 

In the final moments of sunset, Thompson and Nate stood watch while Robbie repainted his interpretation of an explosion onto the water tower’s tank.  He’d been absolutely indignant when Tambry mentioned that the mayor had hired someone to power wash it earlier that day.  He’d cried out in anguish, “No!  That was an expression of the torment in my soul!” when he’d seen that, indeed, there was little sign of it left.  By the time the tower fell into shadow below the cliffs, he was ready with a new can of spray paint, “donated” by the local Home Mart, and had set to work repainting his masterpiece.

As the ambient light waned, Thompson grew anxious, pressing himself closer against the water tower tank and shuffling his feet over boards that seemed to scold him for him presence upon them.  Finally he asked, “Hey guys, are you done yet?”

The pshtts and hisses of spray paint didn’t bother to pause as Nate answered, “Hey, man, artist at work here.  You gotta give him time.”

“Yeah, that’s great and all,” Thompson sputtered, wringing his hands, “but my mom only let me borrow the car if I promised to pick her up from work at nine-thirty and uh…”

“Psh, whatever.  She knows how to take a bus, doesn’t she?” Robbie spat back, shaking up a new can and adding more lines and curves.  With three more sprays, he leaned back against the railing and announced, “And done!  Pretty great, huh?  That'll teach that dumb kid who called it a muffin.”

“I dunno, man,” Nate said, squinting through the near-darkness at the cartoonish explosion.  I think the kid had a point.  It still kinda looks like a-” his tone shifted from critical doubt to enthusiastic support as he caught a glimpse of Robbie’s snarl and clenched fists in the light from the streetlamps, flickering on below.  “An explosion.  A big one that killed a bunch of…  Zombies…  Or something!”

“Damn right,” Robbie snarked.

“Guys,” Thompson whimpered, “mom won’t let me borrow the car anymore if I don’t show up.”

“Yeah, guess we should head out.  It’s getting too dark to see right anyway,” Nate suggested, wagging his thumb toward the ladder.  “And hey, weren’t you like, supposed to meet Wendy tonight or something?”

“Wha…  Wen…” Robbie suttered, “Oh shit!  Shit shit shit, she’ gonna be so pissed!”

 

****

 

After a barrage of colorful language during his attempted apology call to Wendy (with her dad shouting “you tell ‘im!” in the background), Robbie didn’t even want to try crawling into his bed when he knew sleep would elude him.  Thinking of losing Wendy was bad enough.  Thinking of her getting on her dad’s bad side made him wish he could slink down into a hole and…

Well, thanks to the family business, maybe he actually could at least hide out in a hole for a bit.

After sneaking out through his window, he followed the path to the cemetery where his parents had dug out a plot for a funeral the next day.  He slid down into the hole, surrounded by the musk of dampened earth, and laid back.  With his hands behind his head, he stared at the stars, fading in and out through swaying tree branches above.  He thought he was seeing things when a particularly bright star seemed to burn out.  When three, four, five blinked out, he sat upright, eyes wide in awe as the rest followed and the sky stood black and blank, like a vast and endless abyss.  In the center of his vision, a crescent moon appeared, a thin line at first, growing, expanding, no, turning?  Yes, it turned, exposing its bright side until it stood in gleaming yellow against a sense of absolute nothingness.

It blinked, and he gave a startled yelp, scrambling up against the dirt wall of the hole in the ground.  In the orb’s center was an inky slit contracting and dilating as it focused down on him.  He clutched his chest, his heart pounding as a voice seemed to echo through all of his existence, both inside his head and out.

“Well well well.  What do we have here?” it crooned.  “A broken heart?  Here have a few new ones!”

“Ah!”  Robbie covered his eyes with both arms as several human hearts rose from the grave sites around him in varying degrees of decay.

“Too much?  Oh well.”

He barely opened one eye, just enough to watch the hearts drift back into the ground around him.  “Wh-who are you?  What’s going on?” he asked, peeking over the edge and looking around to find no trees nor buildings nor lights, just the dug up plot floating in the blank darkness and a glowing eye whose motions seemed to match the cadence of the voice.

“Me?” the voice said and the eye seemed to smile down at him.  “Think of me as…  A friend.”

“What d-do you want from me?” He stuttered, backing himself against the wall furthest from the eye.

“I’m here to help you,” the voice replied from over his shoulder.  He jumped and turned to find the eye behind him, hovering just above the wall of dirt.  “Your girlfriend was pretty angry with you, huh?”

“H-how do you know about that?!”

“Oh I see lots of things.  I can help you get her back, though.  And make sure her father doesn’t strangle you the next time he sees you.”

“Strangle?” he gulped, clutching his throat.

“Oh yeah.  Definitely.  He’s pretty unhappy that you made his little girl cry.”

“Cry?  Oh man…  How could I be so stupid?!” he spat at himself, smacking his hand against his forehead three times.

_Stupid?  Well let’s hope you are…_

“I tried to say I’m sorry,” Robbie went on, “what else can I do?”

“You could use this,” the voice offered and a CD appeared just above Robbie’s head, tilting back and forth with a rainbow glint from an invisible light source.  “And when you win her back, maybe you can help me get a friend of mine back.”

“Wh-what is that?” he asked, reaching up to touch the CD and pulling his hand away as it spun around and disappeared.

“Just play it for her and I guarantee she’ll give you another chance,” the voice said as the CD appeared in his hand.

“And if it works,” he asked, “I just have to help you with your friend?  But how can I do that? And why should I trust you?!”

“Well, if you think of a better way, to avoid being strangled by a lumbering lumberjack, then by all means, go for it.  But if not, you can decide later whether you want to give my way a try.”

“Gah!” Robbie gasped, snapping awake, still in the bottom of a hole in the graveyard with twinkling stars and swaying tree branches above.  As he sat up, a CD slid down from his chest and into his lap.

 

****

 

 

That night, Dipper brought a few of his belongings down to his new room.  Stan had said he would ask Soos to help him move Dipper’s bed down in a few days; once his nose and eye healed a bit and his joints stopped aching from Waddles pushing them past their limits.  With Dipper and Mabel’s help, he did manage to move the box of broken items up to a corner in the attic, taping it closed with a sigh that echoed in Dipper’s mind.

Neither Dipper nor Mabel had dared to ask any questions about it yet.  Between everything Stan had already dealt with that day and the fact that he didn’t yell at them or ground them, they didn’t want to stir up any more trouble.

For now, Dipper was content to lie back on the sofa with his pillow and blanket, or so he tried to convince himself.  He stared up at the ceiling and the stained glass window, telling himself how much he appreciated the peace and quiet.

“This is going to be great,” he reassured himself, patting the pile of Sibling Brothers books beside the sofa.  “I don’t have to worry about getting hit with stray glitter.  No more worrying about a dust bunny kingdom called Waddlestan being under my bed and, best of all, I can read all night if I want to.”  His words trailed off into a yawn and the decision to skip reading for the night and simply try to catch up on some lost sleep.  He reached for the lamp at the foot of the sofa and clicked it off, instinctively saying, “Goodnight, Mab- oh.”

He didn’t expect the lack of an answer to hollow something out inside him.  He laid back again in the dark, resting his hands behind his head, unable to even close his eyes to try to sleep.

  
  
****

  
Upstairs, Mabel patted Waddles on the head, watching him curl up at the foot of her bed.  She tucked herself in, forcing herself to think of future slumber parties rather than the empty bed on the other side of the room.  She sighed and switched off the light.  As she rolled over, facing away from the vacant bed and lack of a clicking pen, she whispered, “Goodnight Dipper.”

The room felt darker than usual without his reading light.  And cold, despite the stale heat, lingering from the day.  She pulled her blanket tight around herself and curled up in a ball below it but before she could release a sigh, a light knock sounded at the door.

Waddles jumped up and ran to sniff at the crack under the door, his tail wagging in excitement.

“Mabel,” Dipper whispered from the other side.  “Are you still awake?”

In a silly, robotic voice, she answered, “Click.  Mabel fell asleep twenty minutes ago, leave a message at the sound of the beep.  BEEP.”

“Ha ha, good one, Mabel,” Dipper said, cracking the door open.

“What’s up, Dip-Dop?” she asked, sitting up and turning on the lamp.

“I uh…  Was wondering if you wanted to have an arts and crafts sleepover,” he said, letting the door swing open as he dragged the box of broken awards into view.  “Do you think we can fix any of this?”

Mabel leaned over the side of her bed, digging in a duffel bag below.  She sat back up holding five different types of glue in her hands.  “Yes.  Yes we can.  And maybe we can fix up our mini golf course, too” she added, nodding to the broken bits, still strewn across the floor.

 

****

 

Stan cringed his way through the news reports about Waddles’ adventures in his body.  He couldn’t make it half a minute into the interview with Bud before slamming his finger against the power button.  He sat motionless in silence and the glow of the aquarium for a moment, wondering if he had the energy to even get himself into bed.  Making Ford dinner and bringing it to the basement didn’t sound like too much effort in itself, it was the idea of breaking more than one bit of bad news to him that sounded worse than having to sit through one of Gideon's shows.

“May as well get it done,” he resolved, failing to lift himself from his chair the first two times and barely staying on his feet the third.  He decided to check on the kids first and staggered through the hall to Ford’s old room.

“Oh what now,” he grumbled as he found the door open and the couch vacant.  He heaved out a heavy breath and headed for the attic.  Wincing and cringing, he made it up the stairs to find the bedroom door open and warm light shining out into the hall.

“Kids?” he questioned, approaching the door, “What’s going-” words failed him as he swung the door open to find Ford’s trophies and plaques set out on the floor, every one of them glued back together almost flawlessly.

Dipper handed Mabel the back to a photo frame and she clipped it back in place then held it up for Stan to see.  “I hope you don’t mind but...”

Where Mabel trailed off, Dipper continued, “We couldn’t sleep so we thought maybe we could fix this stuff for you.”

“Y-yeah?” Stan stammered, reaching out for the framed photo of himself and Ford at one of their childhood boxing matches.

“I had some extra frames,” Mabel said, “so I used the glass from one of them to replace the glass in there.”

“And we glued everything else back together,” Dipper said, motioning to the trophies.

Stan lowered the photo and smiled, at a loss for words or even thought.  He certainly appreciated their efforts to repair things, and that he could deliver less terrible news to Ford but it was only a matter of time before…

“Grunkle Stan?” Mabel spoke up, her voice hesitant as she asked, “who are those kids in the photo, anyway?”

“And…  Why were you hiding all of these trophies?”  Dipper added.

There it is.

Stan's smile sagged as he sat on Dipper’s bed, the photo frame clutched between his hands.  Silence stretched on for what felt like eons as his mind ran through everything he’d already contemplated that evening.  He still didn’t know what to do or say or even feel aside from a sense of exhausted numbness.  If the kids' response to his accidental truth before was any indication, he was right in believing they'd want to help him, no matter the problem at hand or the danger involved.

“Like I said before,” he finally answered, “There’s things I ain’t ready to talk about.  But,” he added, handing the photo back to Mabel, “If you really want to know, you can ask grandpa Shermie.”  He groaned as he stood back up then patted them each on the head.  “Thanks for fixing this all up. It means a lot to me.  Now lights out and get some sleep, alright?”

He turned back as he reached the doorway, watching them each climb into their beds.  “Aren’t you coming back downstairs, Dipper?” he asked.

“No…  I was thinking, actually, that maybe we could let Soos use the new room when he spends the night.  Would that be alright?”

“So, after all that mess, you’re not even going to use the room?” he replied in an annoyed grumble.

Blushing, Dipper squeaked, “I know, it’s dumb-”

“Ha ha ha!  I’m kidding,” Stan said with a smile that seemed like he understood something they didn’t.  “Now get to sleep.”

Mabel reached over to turn off the lamp as Waddles curled up at her feet again.  They said their good nights and Stan pulled the door closed, leaning back against it.

“Sorry, Dr. Braum,” he murmured, “I couldn’t do it.  I couldn't tell them.”

But he couldn’t bring himself to lie again either.

 

****

 

Ford leaned into the corner, staring at the wall beyond the bars but blind to the contents of the bookshelf, the paper and crayon, still sitting atop the trunk, and the TV, silent and dark aside from the little blue light, signaling its willingness to oblige any voice commands.  He barely noticed when the grow light flickered off for the night, nor when the fountain’s water ceased its soothing trickle.

Thoughts of Stan’s safety trampled through his mind, accompanied by questions over whether the kids had, indeed, been body-swapped as well and if they were all back in their own bodies yet.  Above it all, his own voice boomed, blaming himself for the whole ordeal.   _My_ _invention, my room, my_ _possessions were the catalyst of this chaos…  I know for sure, now.  Sorry, Dr. Braum but we can’t tell them.  It’s too…_ ** _I’m_** _too dangerous.  I’m doing a fine job of hurting people just from what’s left of me in the outside world-_

“Hey.  Hello.  HEY.  You still alive down there?” asked the voice from the vent.

He let out a slow breath and looked up, finding the bespectacled wax head peering through the vent slats at him.  Preferring the sullen silence to any company (other than news from his brother), he answered with a less than enthusiastic, “Oh.  You’re awake.”

“Yeah, nice to see you too,” he huffed, puffing out his cheeks in his best attempt to appear offended.  “Look, I could interview you on whatever sulking you’re busy with right now or you could just put the news on so I can hear the weather report.”

“TV on,” Ford commanded flatly, followed by “channel down down down.”  As he requested, “Volume up up up,” Shandra’s voice grew clearer and he caught the end of her sentence.

“...Exclusive interview with Mr. Bud Gleeful of Gleeful Auto Sale.”

Despite his previous disinterest, he squinted to see her on the screen, sitting behind her desk.  The camera zoomed out to reveal Bud Gleeful sitting beside her, smiling into the camera like he was ready to film one of his boisterous ads.

“Mr. Gleeful,” Shandra began, “is it true you were assaulted in the attack on our town today?” she asked.

“Attack?” Ford questioned, raising a brow.  The man didn’t appear injured in any way but his smile turned dour as he lowered his straw hat over his chest.

“Why yes, quite a shame, really.  I always knew somethin’ wasn’t quite right with him, hidin’ out in the woods an’ pretendin’ everythin’ in that ol’ museum is a genuine oddity,  swindlin’ good people outta their hard-earned money, but I never imagined he’d come into town an’ assault us good, upstanding citizens.”

Ford gave an audible “ugh” at the amount of sugar-coated hogwash dripping from Bud’s speech, almost amused that a similar sound of distaste came from the vent above the TV.

“Now,” Shandra continued, “you say you saw him stealing apples at Gravity Fruits?”

“Yes, ma’am I did.  I saw him attempting to steal apples from their sidewalk display and did my good duty as a citizen and stopped him.  But, somethin’ seemed a little off about him so I asked if there was anythin’ me or my boy, Lil’ Gideon, Psychic and generally delightful entertainer at the Tent of Telepathy, could do for him.  But, he just hauled of an' tried to hit me in the face.  I ducked away in time an’ all he managed ta’ hit was my poor hat, here,” he said, motioning to a bend in the hat’s brim, “So I consider myself lucky.  But something needs to be done.  It’s bad enough how he scams all them perfectly nice tourists out there but now, Stanford Pines is becoming a nuisance in our beautiful town.”

“What?!” Ford bellowed, at a loss for words as he hunched forward and stared, slack-jawed.

“There you have it folks,” Shandra said as the camera zoomed back in to her.

“Wait, hold on a lil’ ol’ minute,” Bud added, seeming to draw the camera back to him.  “Remember to come on down to Gleeful’s Auto Sale to get your free Lil’ Gideon pin and 50% off admission to tomorrow night’s show at the Tent of Telepathy where we’ll be discussin’ what the future holds for this town as long as we allow this menace to society to keep runnin’ his, well, I’m not sure I can call it an actual business.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gleeful,” Shandra said as the camera panned back to her.  “We were able to get a few words from witnesses of today’s attack who seemed to have mixed thoughts about it.  Here’s what they had to say:”

“Oh no…” Ford Muttered, wishing he could look away or turn the TV off but unable to tear his attention from the broadcast.

With a swooshing sound the screen flipped to video footage of Mr. Butcher standing out front of his bakery, motioning to the window, “He tried to break in and steal my muffins.”

Another whoosh and it switched to a video of Farmer Sprott, shaking a shovel and ranting, “he trespassed on my farm and harassed my pigs!”

“I dunno,” said a teen with blond hair, “He’s like, old and stuff.  He probably got lost on his way to water aerobics or shuffleboard or something.”

“Yeah,” added a stout teen of questionable credibility, thanks to the spattering of raw eggs dripping from his shoulders, “He was acting all weird and squealing and running around.  Seemed almost like he was scared.  Like my grandma gets when she has to go to her podiatrist.”

“I mean, we never saw him hurt anyone,” said a teen who tapped at the buttons on her phone then lifted it to show the photo on its screen.  “I got a few pictures and like, he just seemed, kinda messed up or something.”

The image flashed back to Shandra, shuffling the papers on her desk.  “Authorities released Mr. Pines into the custody of his family for the time being, stating they have evidence that his actions were not willfully malicious.  And now, here’s Terry Torrential with the weather.”

“Looks like this weekend will be another scorcher but by late next week we could see those temperatures dropping closer to average-”

The image and voice seemed to blur into oblivion as Ford’s entire existence went numb.  Had he really heard what he thought he had?  Was it real?   _And how dare that grandelinquent gasbag spew such hypocrisy!  And Stanley…  Oh no..._ “Stanley-”

As if replying to Ford’s husky whisper, a knock sounded at the door.  “Hey, Ford.  I’m me again but with a lot less dignity, from what I’ve heard,” he said in a voice that sounded like someone had stomped it into the ground.

“Stanley, I just saw the news.” he replied in a frantic flavor of concern, rushing over to the bars.  “Come in, come in.”  As Stan opened the door he commanded, “TV off.”

“Oh.  you saw that, huh?” he replied and stepped into the light.

To Ford’s semi-relief, he looked no physically worse than last night.  His posture, however, slouched more than usual and his motions were stiff and strained.  Even worse was the way his face seemed to sag.

“Stanley, are you alright?”  
  
“Ha.  Not really, no.  But I brought some soup and some, er, news that might make us both feel less not okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Dlla irzh dbqqfkd qexq abba tfqelrq jv ebim klt, hfa.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Previous end notes decoded ](https://sta.sh/01nluh8wy24e)


End file.
